On November 12, 2003 Ewuare Osayande addressed how Academy Award winner Michael Moore’s questioning of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal’s innocence is typical of the racism and chauvinism of the white Left. Osayande went on to give a candid indictment of the how the white Left both nationally and here in Philadelphia is in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “the great stumbling block in the Black community’s stride toward freedom.” A speech that promises to be remembered as keeping with the best of Philadelphia’s Black abolitionist tradition.

The following are excerpts from the presentation. The full presentation has been published in a pamphlet by the same name as the speech along with another speech given by Osayande on the second anniversary of 9/11 entitled, “Total Recall.” The pamphlet can be acquired by sending a check or money order for $5 payable to Talking Drum Communications at P.O. Box 42634, Philadelphia, PA 19101. Allow about 2 weeks for delivery. Questions, contact us at undagroundrr@yahoo.com.

By Ewuare Osayande
Presented on November 12, 2003
American Friends Service Committee, Philadelphia, PA

Good Evening.

Its good to be here. I want to thank all of the sponsoring organizations for their support for this event, particularly Tanya and Brooke of the Criminal Justice Committee for their support.

Let me start off by saying, I’m going to say a lot of stuff that’s going to be troubling, but its for a reason or I would not be here. I hope that you can have an open mind to hear what I have to say and I will welcome your critiques and your comments. I think it’s high time we have a more honest conversation than what we have had about the state of the movement. That is what its called, right? A movement. But where is it going? And who is leading it there?

In the book, Black Anti-Ballistic Missives, the primary objective was to make two claims. The first being that in the so-called war against terrorism – talking domestically now – the most consistent target has been the African American people in this country. The second claim in the book is that, in the anti-war movement, the white left has rendered itself inoperable and irresponsible in providing leadership for the movement due to their own racism.

The definition of the anti-war movement as it has been articulated and practiced by those within the movement, has been that peace equals the absence of war. Meaning that once the bombs stop, the anti-war movement stops too. There has not been a consistent effort on the part of organizations such as A.N.S.W.E.R. and United for Justice and Peace or whatever its called, Peace and Justice, to actually practice their very name.

I believe that it was Dr. King who wrote and taught that peace is not the absence of tension or in this case the absence of war but in fact is the presence of justice. I come behind that and say that peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of social freedom, cultural respect, economic stability and political parity. When looking at the relationship of people of color in this country to the means of production or capital and to the system itself we can see clearly how there is not only a war raging in Iraq, but – even before the acts of September 11th – there has been a war here at home. And until those persons that are involved in the anti-war movement come to understand this and place their work within the context of this fact then their movement and those persons involved in it are not going to get to the place they would like for us to go.

The tendency is for the white left to color it as a class struggle, pun intended, thus decentralizing the reality of racism. But as I always maintain, class is colored. And I stand on the word and work of many activists and a number of historians when I say so. You can’t have an honest conversation about class without understanding the nature of racism and how it operates in this country. You can’t have an honest conversation about it. Now we may want to be idealistic in our aims and desires, we want to get to a spot in our history where we don’t need to talk about race, but that time has not yet come, we are dealing with lived experience here.

Shoshana Johnson, Lori Piestewa and the white Privilege of Jessica Lynch

I want to talk about the most recent event in the anti-war movement and that’s this whole situation surrounding Jessica Lynch. This nation has known now for almost a month that the government is giving POW Shoshana Johnson just a portion of the disability money received by Jessica Lynch. Shoshana Johson is a Black woman. She was in the same unit as Lynch. She was caught and captured by the same Iraqis as Lynch. She had her ankles blown to dust. And currently she is receiving thirty percent disability benefits to Jessica’s eighty.

The problem is two-fold. The problem is that there are many folk in the movement who are not even aware of this. That’s the sad part. What is further saddening is that the movement was not been able to centralize this issue of racism long before Shoshana Johnson found out that she was only going to get thirty percent disability benefits to Jessica Lynch’s eighty percent. Shoshana Johnson was a serious issue within this movement, yet no one addressed her case fully and thus what she represents. Shoshana Johnson is not African American in the way most white folk perceive Black folks in this country. Her parents are immigrants from Panama; she’s Panamanian. What that means is that not that far back in the 80’s, we know what this country did to Panama, when Reagan and Bush I went in there to get their CIA child Noriega because he did not do what they wanted him to do. The story is very similar to someone they are going after now named Bin Laden. Yet here we have someone who is in this country as a result of what this country did to and in Panama. Let’s be clear. Just like those folks in Iraq are suffering yet the man, Saddam Hussien, still exists somewhere. No one knows where, yet they got satellites that can see dinosaur doo-doo miles under the ground, yet we don’t know where Saddam Hussein is hiding. But it is the Iraqi people who are suffering and they continue to and will continue to suffer for years as a result of what has happened already. Same with the Panamanian people. So a lot of Panamanians left Panama to come to this country, just like lots of immigrants from Europe at the turn of the 20th century, believing there is opportunity here. Same with her family. And so this is the way America shows its appreciation for the Panamanian people. They put one of their daughters on the front line of a war that is wholly unjust … Do you see my po int? There is a story here that when shared really gives us an opportunity to discuss the harsh reality of imperialism and neo-colonization. You got former national enemies of the US fighting for the US against another enemy of the US. And they are not doing it cause they are pro-American. They are doing it cause they need a job. The United States bombs their country, kills their leaders and devastates their nation’s economy. Left destitute, they decide to come here only to end up becoming a prisoner of war in another one of America’s wars.

Yet again my point is this: Where is the white left on this issue? Why has no one told this story right? This is frustrating! Jessica Lynch for her part has made clear that she is no hero. That’s not a story, that’s not a story. NBC told us that. ABC has told us that, so that is not the real story. That is the story the corporate media tells you to keep you from learning the real story. They tell you a little meaningless story to hide the big story that would expose this government for being the racist, sexist and classist monster that it really is.

The real story is … Does anyone know who the first American woman to die in Iraq was? The first one? She was a Native American named Lori Piestewa, I’m probably not saying it right. Lori Piestewa of the Hopi Nation. The first United States female soldier to die in Iraq was a Native American. Right now Native Americans in Arizona where she is from are fighting the state because they want to have a mountain peak named after her. Do you know what the mountain peak is called now? Its called Squaw Peak. Evidently everyone knows what squaw means and why it is so offensive and Native Americans have been fighting this issue for years to no avail. They finally get the governor and the mayor to support them cause they want to have it named Piestewa Peak, yet the board chairperson of the organization that determines what the names of the mo untain peaks are going to be is not Native American, he is a white man and he wants to keep the name of the mountain peak Squaw – claiming a technicality that is not legal to name it Piestewa Peak because she has to be dead for five years first.

Let me say this, if Jessica Lynch was the first American female soldier to die in Iraq, she would have monuments popping up in her honor everywhere overnight. Full-blown statues honoring her. As it stands Jessica is set to benefit in ways the families of Johnson and Piestewa never will. Lynch is going to make millions from movies, TV appearances, magazine covers, and book deals. She already gets eighty percent benefits to Shoshana Johnson’s thirty percent which amounts to essentially $700-800 a month. Which is just above the benefits they get or will get for being veterans which ain’t much because we know what Bush did recently to cut back veteran benefits. Something ain’t right. Seems Jessica can’t get away from her white privilege no matter what she says. No matter what she does publ icly, she can’t get away from the privilege of being white. The material benefit white folk have by being white, which is a political status. Shoshana Johnson is not getting any book deals. You don’t see Diane Sawyer trying to interview her on prime time TV spots. Yet I did see her on Jay Leno. You know what she said on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show? Know why she’s not getting any spots? She said the Iraqis treated me okay. Jay’s trying to get her to talk about how horrible it was, how terrible it was to become a prisoner of war. He’s going on about how scared she looked on the TV screen, and she was like, “Absolutely, you know I was scared but they did not do anything bad to me, they took care of me and helped my legs to heal.”

This is the issue here, African American people have known about the Shoshana Johnson discrimination case for about 3 weeks now. Not because of any organization, but because African Americans were talking to each other on-line from family to family, friend to friend, co-worker to co-worker. We’re better organized than you are. And these Black folks don’t claim to be an organization, don’t claim to represent nobody’s movement. And I’m not talking about conscientious Black activists like myself. I’m talking Black folk who would vote Republican. Who go to church. Yet if we don’t show up to your marches, to your rallies and other events, we’re accused of not being down. So what do we call you when you refuse and chose not to support our causes and concerns? What do we call that?

Michael Moore, Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Anti-Death Penalty Campaign

Michael Moore. Let’s get right to it. Michael Moore is a fraud. There I said it. Michael Moore is the latest manifestation of what white liberalism means today. Malcolm called it a long time ago. He said you got the foxes, and you’ve got the wolves. When he was talking about the wolves he was talking about the Southerners he called crackers. He said he’d rather deal with a cracker — at least I know where I stand. In the book Black Anti-

Ballistic Missives, I have a speech entitled “The White Liberal Agenda is Dead.” In the speech I make the assertion that until the white left is capable of being accountable to the oppressed that they claim to represent, then their movement is a mis-movement, its leadership is misleading the people down a road that we don’t need to go.

Part of the struggle of people of color is that we need to decolonize our minds. We need to stop thinking that the only way is the white folks way. They got a set up that is real sweet … for them. I’m going to get to it in a moment. I’m going to lay out the whole structure for you, how the system works right here in this city. Why you don’t see many black folks up in there whatsoever. No, I’m not talking about the corporate world. I’m talking about the so-called activists, the so-called non-profit philanthropic world.

Michael Moore in his book, Dude, Where’s My Country? – I guess he was trying to relate to the skate boarders or something with the “Dude.” He says in fact that he believes Mumia killed that cop. He opens up the section in the book where he is trying to make concessions to conservative whites. The white ring. I keep making the mistake of saying “white ring” when I mean to say right wing, pretty interesting mistake. Means the same thing. Yet he opens up the chapter where he is talking to folk on the left saying, you know there are certain things that we just might as well say are correct about the right. He goes on to discuss people who actually want to take care of their children and people who are pro family and that all that stuff. He says that we might as well concede that some of that stuff is good. He opens up this chapter by taking issue with Mumia. Let me explain something to people here because I know a lot of folk particularly in the city of Philly … you know that this is where the Quakers are and we are in a Quaker building. I got some love for the Quakers. Some of them were good. Some of them had a vision. They believe in non-violence and are pacifists I am told. Their work is based on moral grounds primarily. Now I want us all to understand something very important about the Black liberation struggle in this country. That sets us apart from these groups and movements that operate on a moral basis alone. African American people, people of color, people of conscience cannot be anti-death penalty on moral grounds alone, meaning on the grounds that it is morally wrong for the state to murder a prisoner. The reason why is that we walk into the courtroom guilty. We have to prove our innocence. See the l aw says your what? “You’re innocent until proven guilty.” Well, we walk into the courtroom guilty. We got to prove our innocence. So that means that the majority of Black folks in prison, people (I’m saying this), the majority doesn’t belong there, they don’t belong there. We don’t even have time to talk about why so many people of color are in the prisons right now … because something happened around 1972 that has forever rearranged the social structure in this country. But suffice it to say, Black folks cannot be anti-death penalty on the grounds that it is wrong to kill. I’ve heard this too many times from white folks who believe that the Black person did it, they actually believe that the Black person committed the crime, so their stance against that person being executed is not based in that person’s innocence see, it is based on their belief that it is wrong to kill that person regardless. And that is just racist. It doesn’t challenge the dominant social notion that Black peop le are always guilty. And that is what Michael Moore is reinforcing in his book, and that is why he should be denounced. Just like the racist judge that says, you got to prove to me that you are innocent. Unless he’s going to believe that an Albert Sabo can execute justice. Albert Sabo was responsible for sending more black folk to death row than any other judge in the state.

Once again I’m asking where is the white left? Why is no one spanking that man, Michael Moore, right now? Why are his crowds are still in the thousands? Where is the campaign to get rid of him? Where is the campaign to denounce him? Where’s the campaign to force him to recant his statement, to apologize, to make a public apology? Do you know what will happen if Mumia is executed? Do you know what’s going to happen in this country if Mumia is murdered? I’m not talking about the response from people of color and his supporters, that’s one thing. But do you know what’s going to happen if Mumia dies? What legal precedent that going to put out there? We have not had an outright political execution since the Fifties when they took out the Rosenbergs. There’s no other way to see Mumia’s case.

We have a man who has confessed to the crime. You mean to tell me that “Mr. Research” himself, Michael Moore, can’t do a little research. He can find out all manner of shit about this country, you mean to tell me that he can’t find out that someone has already confessed, and that the man’s testimony corroborates with a number of testimonies that were made that night. We have copies of his testimony for those who are interested. I don’t expect you just to read it yourself.

More White Liberal Betrayal of Mumia Abu-Jamal

But this is not the first for Mumia, there’s a long list of turn-coats and betrayers. Seems like Mumia is political football for the white left, just like a lot of Black abolitionists took issue with some white folks during slavery, how they addressed the issue of slavery and the actual enslaved Africans. These Black abolitionists called it for what it was. Exploitation. Usury. Said you don’t really want them free. You don’t really see us as your equals. We are just the gas that keeps your engines going. We add to your flame. We add credibility to your rant against your mother country. You want things to change for you, not for us in truth. Talking about, well gradually things will change. That’s what Michael Moore says about the death penalty. Well, you know more and more Americans are becoming aware that the death penalty is mo rally wrong, so eventually this practice of killing prisoners is going to go. Like how many folks have got to be executed before Americans wake up. And we’re just supposed to wait.

See this is why I quoted Dr. King on the flyer for this event. I got emails from people taking issue with me on my flyer, telling me that I’m wrong to suggest that when King was referring to the white moderate, he was talking about the white left of today. Their claim is that he was talking about folk like Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh, a moderate!?! I said nah, King was not taking issue with the White Citizen’s Council. He was not taking issue with the Klan. He did not consider them moderate. He took issue with those ministers, those white protestant ministers who were down with the movement, who marched hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder with him. Those ministers who, after the march, would sit down and try to give him advice. And he is there frustrated saying we got to make something happ en right now, and their reply is for him to cool down, hold it. You know we got them right where we want them. They’re not lynching yall right now, so just chill out King. So King writes the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and says something like, “I’m sorry that I have to say this but I’m coming to find that it is the white moderate who is the great stumbling block to the Black community’s stride toward freedom.” Michael Moore is a stumbling block in the Black community’s stride toward freedom. And every white person who proclaims to be down for the cause yet fails to take issue with Michael Moore, still goes to his events, still buys his books, still keeps him in business, you’re a stumbling block too! And part of the reason is that all this time that we’re spending here dealing with this, should be time spent doing something more productive. But if we don’t take issue with Michael Moore see, if we don’t address his racism, then we’ll have a whole lot of people who will believe hi m and say, yes Moore’s right, Mumia must have done it. So yes we will be against the death penalty, but if they happen to execute Mumia then you know, he got what he deserved. Is that what we want? I didn’t think so!

The Exploitation of the Oppressed by Philadelphia’s White Left

In this city Philadelphia, PA 2003, the organizations that claim to represent the interests and the concerns of the poor and underprivileged are in large part run, operated, staffed and controlled by white folks. That’s not good. It’s not good not because they are white, meaning they are born here with pale skin; that’s not why it’s not right. It not right because of something called white skin privilege that takes white people and places them outside the realm of the oppressed. And believe me, you might be looking kind of quizzical now, but when I’m through, you will not have the quizzical look on your face anymore, and if you do, then you’re in really deep denial.

Think about the language. Lets deal with the language that organizations utilize, whether it’s in their proposals for funding or whether it’s in their promotions for their campaigns. The “poor and underprivileged” is an example of this. Who are the “poor and the underprivileged” in this city, in this time? Are not the poor and underprivileged people of color? Not to discount the small number of white folk who suffer, but when taken percentage wise in relation to the population, are not the poor and underprivileged people of color. Then why don’t they just say that? Another code term is urban. We know what urban means. You go pick up Billboard magazine and it says “urban contemporary music.” That’s rhythm and blues. That’s Black music. For Black, Hispanic and Southeast Asian peoples in this city, our reality is rarely lived and experienced by white folks, rarely lived and experienced by white people. Yet white people place themselves in positions and claim themselves able and capable of representing the very interests of those persons. Organizations that attempt to do this in this city are the following. Yes, that’s right. I’m going to name names. Philadelphia Unemployment Project, Jobs with Justice, Philadelphia Student Union, Philadelphia Public School Notebook, Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses or should I say Crust and Thorns. The Center for Responsible Funding, that’s a question. Pennsylvania Abolitionists Against the Death Penalty, Training for Change, Spiral Q Puppet Theater, The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Covenant House, The Other Side magazine, WKRU, ACT UP, ACORN, YHEP. And that’s just the sh ort part of the list. There’s more. … AFSC.

The question is, where is the money? The question is: How have the oppressed benefited from the presence of these organizations in our communities? That’s the critical question. If we can answer the question affirmatively and say, of course, people of color benefit from the presence of these organizations, meaning that our lives and lived reality has thus been changed for the better, then we would sit back and applaud and say thank you for your presence. But the sad fact is that it ain’t so. So then the question becomes: What is the real purpose of these groups?

Non-Profits as Capitalist Brokers and Guilt-Based Activism

What happens so often is that the argument gets made that the system is so big and bad that every time we whites try to make change happen we just keep hitting up against walls. And you are talking to black folks about hitting heads up against walls. The question becomes are the oppressed any less oppressed by the result of having these organizations in existence. … This is the word on the street people – the word on the street is called poverty pimps. That is the term created by the oppressed to describe those groups that claim to benefit the oppressed, but instead they simply benefit from the oppression. People say that you got to go to school to learn about social change. Right? How many Ivy League folk you got running these organizations. Fact of the matter is, and I’m going to exp lain this, so people, again I’m asking you to be patient, I’m going to get to it. This is about exploitation. I don’t care how well meaning you are. This is not about being well meaning, people. This is about results. Okay? It’s akin to someone hitting me and saying, “I did not mean to hit you.” But I’m still in pain see; I still got to deal with the pain. I can hear you say I didn’t mean to hurt you, but the fact is, I’ve been hit, I am hurting. I need something or someone to help me address this pain. White folks get stuck in: “This is not what we meant to do.” That’s called guilt-based activism.

We got to move out of the guilt-based activism, cause as long as you stay guilt-based, the results don’t occur because it’s all about alleviating the guilt. It’s all about alleviating the guilt so the work becomes: “How do we feel white people?” Do “we” feel good about doing good work? Of course “we” do. “We” spend our afternoons, “we” spend “our” weekends and “our” evenings doing the good work so that “we” can feel good about ourselves, whether or not the oppression has changed. What matters is that “we’re” making the effort, see. The question still remains: Are the oppressed any less oppressed? And somewhere along the way the oppressed are going to stop and say, “Wait a minute, this ain’t working out right. We still got nasty homes, to liv e in if I‘m able to get one, still ain’t got no job, no prospects for a job. I’ve been to these groups and these organizations and they have helped me to an extent, but the condition and quality of my life has not changed.” Something must be done.

What ends up happening is that these groups end up becoming brokers between the capitalists and the oppressed. These organizations become brokers. Who do you write your proposal to? That’s the capital. The oppressed want that. That’s what we want. That’s how our labor gets exploited. Those are the people we’re after. You end up becoming gatekeepers in our struggle to get after the capitalists, those people who own the means of production. We are the means of their production. We’re the folks they hire then fire after they have gotten their due from our labor. That’s all we, the oppressed, got. That’s all we got. See, we did not go to Ivy League schools to learn how to manipulate. To learn how to take money from here and put it over here, to pretend like we’re getting something done, while all we’re doing is making sure we can pay our bills. So you come in and give us the run down about how you are here to help us. You say, “We’re going to make sure that money comes down and gets to you all.” Yet, we don’t ever see any money. I’ve never seen white folks walk into the hood and say, “Here’s the money!” That would be a beautiful day.

This brings up the question of solidarity. This brings up the question of alliance. How is it that an organization addressing the issue of reparations has to write a proposal to a white organization to get money when the issue is reparations? Now do I have to give some education here? Reparations is the struggle of African Americans to receive just payment for the condition of slavery and the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, that Black folks suffered under, where our labor was exploited, where we did not get paid a penny for some 300 years of slavery. See, we ain’t been out of slavery longer than we were in it. There are a whole lot of corporations indicted in that process – companies like Aetna, Fleet bank and others. We got folks in the trenches taking care of that.

The other concern becomes what about the good money? The money that whites believe is not tied to the legacy of slavery. Cause that’s the bad money, he’s talking about the bad money. That’s money made directly from slavery. When all I see is green. What I know is the green that my ancestors worked for yet never got is out there somewhere, and somebody’s benefiting from it and it aint us who are the their sons and daughters. So the question becomes: Who got the money? Why do they still have the money? And why is it that I got to sit here and write for their permission to get access to it, when they claim that they are about social justice.

Less than fifteen percent of the organizations that receive funding from Bread and Roses are organizations headed by people of color. No more than fifteen percent. We did the math. That’s right, we sat down, took the groups off their web site and did the math. They have a public listing of the organizations they fund. Less than fifteen percent are run by people of color in a city that is half Black. I’m not taking into account the Asian community, the Latino community, just us Black folks. They also fund Camden area and Chester. That’s an even higher Black percentage. Less that fifteen percent people. Now am I supposed to excuse this because these are the good whites? Am I supposed to say I’m not supposed to see that because at least they are trying to give us something? Am I supposed to be grateful? Is that what the word is? No, I’m not grateful. I’m not because my community continues to suffer because white folk believe that pitching pennies to us is appropriate when it is not.

Crust and Thorns, the Center for Irresponsible Funding and Training for Cha-Ching!

Where was Bread and Roses, the Center for Irresponsible Funding and other organizations when BUF (The Black United Fund) needed them? The Black United Fund, they are also a funding conduit much like Bread and Roses and CRF. Yet of all these groups that are doing activist work, funding activist work, how is it that BUF is the only one the feds go after? How is that? They all work in the same city, they all operate (for the most part) with the same organizations. We know why the feds came after BUF. Cause they were funding the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. But guess what? This is the secret that no one wants you to know: Bread and Roses funded Mumia work too, but no one took after them. So of all groups who would have a responsibility and accountability t o BUF, where was Bread and Roses when they needed them?

The Center for Irresponsible Funding is acting in a role now that the Black United Fund was meant to play. Back in the 80s BUF was challenging United Way dominance for workplace giving on a national scale — you know, the campaigns to encourage workers to have a portion of their income go towards non profit organizations. BUF was the first to challenge United Way dominance in that arena, yet by the time the feds pulled the plug on BUF, CRF has long been operating in that role. Too long. How did that happen? I don’t see a community here but competition. And after CRF had been in the position, they never peeped a word on behalf of BUF.

Bread and Roses awarded the director of Training for Change the Paul Robeson award. George Lakey comes to the Paul Robeson House in West Philly because he does not really know whom Paul Robeson was. Why are they giving awards to folks who don’t even know who the man was? And more importantly, why are they doing that in this city where the man himself, Paul Robeson himself, spent his final years in the house that is operated by a woman who did not even receive an invitation to the awards banquet? She did not even get an invitation to come to the ceremony. How does this happen? This is crass opportunism on the part of whites — awarding each other in the name of Black liberation struggle, and in the process negates the Black folks who are alive and responsible for keeping the history alive of the very folk in whose memory they give out awards.

Now let’s deal with Training for Cha-Ching. How can an organization that claims to address racism be operated by a man who is white? This is a critical comment on where we are as a movement that you would have an anti-racist organization that is not accountable to any persons of color or organizations of color. I worked with a woman; her name again was Wanda Lofton. Many of you probably never heard of her, but I never met a woman as committed and as clear in my life. You did not know about her because she was not about the media or the spotlight, she was about the work. She taught me a lot about racism and how to deal with racism and racists. A few years back while we were involved in facilitating trainings for the United Methodists, she sent some of our trainees to attend a session with George Lakey’s people at Training for Change and report back on what they experienced. We learned that during their workshops — and this is just one example — in their workshops they have an exercise where they put a person of color or persons of color in the middle of a room and the whites in attendance sit around and listen to them, while those people of color talk about their experience with racism. The white folks’ job is to sit there and listen. That’s a serious breach of cardinal rule number one … I’m going to give you a free lesson. I believe it costs at least $100 some odd dollars to attend at Training for Change session. But here’s a free lesson in anti-racism. People of color experience racism everyday of our lives; the mere act of re-telling our experience is akin to experiencing the racism all over again. It reopens festering wounds that are inflicted on us by the daily barrage of racism we have to endure just to survive. Black folks been writing books about this experience since we’ve been here. There’s no difference in terms of the information whether it is coming from the mouth of Black person or a book written by a Black person. When Black people are called upon by whites to offer up themselves as learning moments for whites (tell us what it is like to be Black or whatever), that is called making Black folks or other people of color do your dirty work and you walk away feeling better. Better because of what? I don’t get it. That problem would not happen if George Lakey were actually in an accountable relationship to someone Black, someone who would check him when he became unprincipled. But then again we’re dealing with a white man running an anti-racist organization in Philadelphia that doesn’t even know the life and legacy of someone like Paul Robeson.

What kind of change are they training for? Is it social change or is it monetary change? Cause if I don’t see any social change going on, then it begs the question people, it begs the question. You see, I’m certain that some of you have been through Training for Change workshops, yet why does it take someone like me to came out and say that Michael Moore is wrong? Why is it that people of color have to constantly do the work of addressing ourselves to white people’s racism when we got white people who are supposedly trained in the work of addressing racism? Doesn’t the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition end with the words “Ending Racism”?

What we are dealing with here is what many folks are starting to call the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. My only amendment to that term is that we need to be clear that there is a profit that is being made; it’s not truly “non-profit.” A lot of folks are benefiting from this set-up. The white Left in this city as well as other folks in this country practice a system of cronyism. Where they patronize each other, monetary pats on the back, and where people of color are rendered in subordinate positions. You have a lot of people of color in these organizations that are the project director but not the executive director. Got a lot of folks that are the associate … And the interesting thing is, see, this is what my mom always told me since I was a little boy, and this is the experience tha t most black folks know very well. You been on a job for x amount of years, some snotty ass white kid fresh out of college is hired and you got to train him or her. And the next thing you know they’re your boss!

Accountability and Black Self-Determination

That’s not just in the corporate world, people, its not. Folk who got the opp to go to Ivy League school to supposedly learn about oppression – in truth learn how to dress up oppression, while the people who live it, who live in the oppression, got to justify their existence and their work in order to get the funds that they need. Something is wrong with that picture. Ain’t no turning the tables going on here! Ain’t no rearrangement of the social structure here! It’s as elitist as anything in the Fortune 500! Got neo-liberal capitalists who sit atop the food chain with the money from years of slavery and labor exploitation of whole populations and generations of black and brown bodies and spirits. This is what enables you to look aloof while you benefit from the stolen labor of hundred s of years. So you don’t want to really challenge the structure cause that would mean challenging your very status within it, the material privilege that comes with being white. This is why you are able to hold these positions and make the decisions as to who will be funded and who will not. Who will be supported and who will not. Cause it’s a system of cronyism, elitism and privilege that is as old as slavery itself.

There is some guy with a book called Robin Hood was Right. You know what I’m talking about? Chuck Collins, the guy with United for a Fair Economy, is one of the authors and again I’m saying, all these titles sound right, United for a Fair Economy, Change not Charity, The Funding Exchange. Yeah, Robin Hood was right, but guess what? According to the story, at least the one I had read to me as a child, Robin Hood was down with the poor cause he was one of the poor folks himself. He stole from the rich to give back to the poor. So where does this guy Chuck get off saying that since Robin Hood was right, it’s the prerogative now of the whites who are in the middle class, who are moneyed, to decide how to give over some cash flow, not to the poor but to the brokers. Those who broker on behalf of the poor, the nonprofits. I’m saying to you, they got it wrong! Robin Hood was right, but this ain’t Robin Hood action. They are not acting like Robin Hood cause they are not from the hood. They are not Robin Hood. Rather, they’re the ones robbing the hood. The question comes down to accountability. I could stand here and call for a revolution of the structure, if you will, but I’ll rep my reformist self for the moment and say that the question comes down to accountability. Although the revolution of the system is the goal. The structure must be dismantled either by choice or other means.

It’s about accountability, let me give you another example and I’ll wrap it up. Once upon a time in the South, poor folks got together. Folks living in a housing project got together because they had these college grads coming down, PHD students and what not. They wanted to so some research that in their white minds they thought would one day come back and benefit those poor Black people. So they were coming in and doing their research, and then one day someone from the oppressed community got a clue and said, “Wait a minute, you all are getting a whole lot of money to come in and do this work, aren’t you? You’re getting money from foundations and you got fellowships. Then you come in here, gain access to our lives and our homes, sit down, make us sit down with you, when we should be working, taking care of our families, you know living. And we si tting here, running down for you our reality, which you take out the community and do not leave nary a penny, probably won’t even eat in the hood. Can’t wait to get out, Lord knows, don’t let the sun go down.” But he’s benefiting, you know clearly the white grad benefits. He’s going to be able to get accolades, one day probably going to write a book about it, go an a speaking tour, get some position somewhere in some Ivy League school teaching a bunch of other white kids about what he done learned about the oppressed and all the while the people who was there they’re now dead and gone. Their children, with whatever ailments that the dude was there to figure out and help them understand, still got the ailments and have passed them down to the next generation. These folks got a clue and said hold up, we’re stopping this show right now. We’re stopping it! They organized amongst themselves and said, next time any of y’all get some white guy coming into the hood, y’all call everybody up. They got a phone tree and the next thing you know, the next time someone came in with their questions and Ivy League ties, they called people and everyone in the community came around and sat down with them and said, “You want some information from us, this is what we require.” They had a list of things. If they were able to meet that list, they got the information. If they were not able to meet that list, they sent them on their way. That is called the self-determination of the oppressed. That is called true empowerment. Anything less than this, is exploitation.

The organization that I am going to promote is a group that I just started along with Jaqui Simmons. Our aim is to train folks on how to take on of some of this. We want to see this happen here in Philly. The organization’s name is POWER: People Organized Working to Eradicate Racism. Our purpose is two-fold. One, to help folks understand what racism is, but not only to help you understand it, but to hold whites accountable on it. Second, is to actually do the work that other groups that claim to do this work never do, and that is to actually empower people of color. Not to exploit them in the middle of the training. I mean here you are, a person of color, going to a racist, I mean an anti-racist training. No, I said it right the first time. So-called anti-racist training, and you end up experiencing racism right there in the anti-racist training. No, we don’t do it like that. You’re supposed to leave empowered, you don’t leave hurt and frustrated. Cause our process is different because white folks do the work, once and for all. We actually learn how to coalesce and deal with our own concerns. As things currently stand, the work of addressing the issues and concerns of the oppressed is based on a white liberal agenda that is steeped in guilt. Until we change that, until we change the nature of the work itself … Until people of color de-colonize our minds and imagine a new world … not just in some fantasy notion of this quasi-“Matrix” thing where we gonna come out the box, we gonna unplug ourselves. If you want to see some white liberal, neo-liberal nonsense, go see “The Matrix.” Some of yall like that stuff, tell the truth. See, people of color, we were born unplugged. Yeah, they got some of us caught up in their fantasy world. True true. But we live in the real world. That is our existence. We are trying to unplug some white folks, get white folks to wake up and recognize. That was kind of true what the Wachowski brothers did when they showed Morpheus trying to give Neo some direction. The problem with that is this: Morpheus was already the One. But due to his own internalized oppression he thought he needed some white boy to be down with him to make it work. He was already the One. Black folks, we are the One! But let me stop cause that’s a whole other conversation.

Closing Remarks

Know this people, know that what Pam said is absolutely true. We are hard pressed to find International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal an office in this city. When you get up and go to your office tomorrow, understand that no one has been more committed than International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the MOVE family. None of us have suffered the experience of having a bomb explode on top of your homes, and yet they are still here. They are still fighting. The least we can do is make sure they have an office to work from. That’s the least that we can do, I think.

Finally: Jeff Garis, Matty Boy, John Dodds, Christie Balka, Carole Boughter. Make sure these people know what happened here tonight, and make sure that they know that we’re watching them. Plain and simple, this is going to stop. This is going to stop. They’re not taking out Mumia over some knuckle-head white man trying to sell himself to the fucking white right. That shit is not going to happen. Let them and their friends know that we expect them to be accountable to what was shared here tonight. You let them know that we expect them to contact Michael Moore and make him recant that statement. You let them know that we will hold them accountable to this. And if they refuse, if they refuse to be accountable, they will never be able to stand up anywhere and say that they represent social justice organizations working on behalf of the oppressed because we will be right behind them calling them the liars they will have made themselves to be. We don’t have any damn ties to the oppressors. We ain’t funded by no damn body, so we don’t give a damn.

Good Night.

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