WILL THIS BE THE RADICALIZATION OF BLACK LIVES MATTER?
By Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report.
December 3, 2020 | STRATEGIZE!
Ten Black Lives Matter Chapters Are Demanding That Those Who Have Amassed
Millions Of Dollars In The Movement's Name Submit To Both A Financial And
Political Accounting.
"It is clear that the chapters raising questions about BLM from the
frontlines are doing so not out of a desire to destroy but to strengthen the
movement by generating this discussion."
On Monday a group of local Black Lives Matter chapters issued a statement to
the public calling for more transparency and accountability from the Black
Lives Matter Global Network (BLMGN), the umbrella structure for the Black
lives matter structures.
In what appears to be an ongoing internal discussion, the chapters claimed
that BLMGN not only did not collaborate on political visioning and
collective analysis with the chapters but shockingly, with the millions
reported in the media that was raised from foundations and corporations,
"most chapters have received little to no financial support since the launch
in 2013."
The lack of accountability and questions regarding the use of funds were
almost inevitable because it was designed that way. Counterinsurgency
efforts in the U.S. and elsewhere discovered that these methods are
effective and adopted them as part of the playbook for corrupting and
redirecting potential oppositional groups.
This does not mean that everyone participating in this effort were
opportunists - quite the contrary. There were thousands of Black activists
across the country who sincerely supported and participated in what has
become the Black Lives Movement.
"Most chapters have received little to no financial support since the launch
in 2013."
These activists for the most part had no idea that questions emerged from
the very beginnings of this "movement," which only intensified in
relationship to the George Floyd demonstrations, especially when it appeared
that the state had successfully placed BLM at the head of something it had
not organized.
Most of the activists who hit the streets just wanted to do the work and
didn't know that questions about whether this movement was more valuable as
an instrument of the ideological re-legitimization of the system than it was
as an instrument for advancing the oppositional, anti-capitalist radical
Black movement, especially as it seemed to align itself with right-wing
neoliberal Democrats from Obama, Clinton, Warren and now to Biden.
So, with the field being flooded with cash from the enemy to keep the focus
on easily incorporated themes of "racial justice" and "criminal justice
reform," issues of both financial and political accountability were always
beneath the surface. Now those issues have found the light of day and
accountability is being called for.
I hope that this effort will result in a serious discussion around the
politics of BLM more so than the money issue, even though both are
intertwined by the source of the money and the reasons why resources were
generated to support this effort.
"Issues of both financial and political accountability were always beneath
the surface.
The situation that faces African workers and the colonized peoples of this
settler colony are dire. There is no capitalist solution to the crisis of
capital at this stage of its development. No Keynesianism, no "new deals,"
no appeals to U.S. exceptionalism or "making America great" will reverse its
rot. The material contradictions of the capitalist order have accelerated
social-economic forces toward either a unique period of a "new" national
expression of U.S. fascism (colonialist fascism was the base upon which
racialized capitalism was erected ), or of a revolutionary situation in
which socialist revolution is presented by left forces as a viable option.
This dual trajectory is understood by the rulers and is the basis for why
they have consciously moved to pre-empt the radicalization of the present
moment by propping up what has now become a diversionary movement meant to
de-politicize, even in the midst of dramatic mobilizations across the
country, in reaction to the lynching of George Floyd.
Throughout the first few months of Covid pandemic in April and into May,
stories started to surface that revealed how environmental racism,
neoliberal privatization that devastated the public health system, poverty,
Black and Brown workers concentrated in the lowest rungs of the employment
ladder - the "essential" workers - had created the conditions that made the
virus a plague for us.
"The rulers have consciously moved to pre-empt the radicalization of the
present moment by propping up what has now become a diversionary movement
meant to de-politicize."
But those stories just about disappeared for several months, beginning at
the end of May. And what happened? George Floyd.
The streets were filled with righteous indignation demanding "justice" for
Floyd and correctly linking the other cases of police violence such as the
execution of Breonna Taylor. Yet, while the marches demanded that we say the
names of Floyd and Taylor and remember Rice and Sandra Blaine - out of sight
in run-down nursing homes, overcrowded hospitals, and alone in apartments,
our folks were dying in silence. The movement would not claim them; would
not say their names or, it seemed - fight for them.
And even as the lines for food extended for miles, the unemployment check
stopped coming and people were driven into the streets by landlords released
from moratoriums against evictions. Somehow these crimes of capital did not
fit the definition of an assault on our people. It was as if this was
neither a "racial justice" issue nor a crime of racialized capitalism.
It is clear to me that the chapters raising questions about BLM from the
frontlines are doing so not out of a desire to destroy but to strengthen the
movement by generating this discussion. Will it be a tough conversation?
Yes. Because partially obscured by the liberal appropriation of
intersectionality is the issue of class that the largely petit-bourgeois
classed-based leadership of the movement will not even acknowledge, let
alone struggle with.
But that may soon change.
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and
was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. Baraka
serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership
body of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC). He is an editor and
contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing
columnist for Counterpunch. He was recently awarded the US Peace Memorial
2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shirm award for uncompromised integrity in
journalism.
