Toward a Scientific Black Power Movement

The Black Power Movement has degenerated ever since the 70's. The main problem I see is "magical" or non-evidence-based thinking in an organization's strategies and tactics.

The black Power movement has degenerated considerably. Like most movements in America, it is now a loose conglomeration of many political organizations with slight to dramatic differences in outlook. A lot of these organizations are inbred cults, dysfunctional reading groups, pyramid schemes and street gangs. The greatest example is the BLM national organization and its leaders use of liberal tropes, and the death of George Floyd attract donners to enrich themselves. Groups like these are a product of and reinforce the absolute mess that is the black power movement. A new black power movement needs to be formed, one based on reason, evidence and fact, not wishful thing, pure ideology, and mythology.

There has been a growth of “magical thinking” among the black power movement, especially those who espouse cultural nationalism and lifestyle politics. I define magical thinking as the belief that one's ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world disregarding what the evidence suggests. The belief that blacks liberation can come about by “being revolutionary” or acting “revolutionary” is a tendency much accepted in the BPM. There is little attempt to understand the historical situation, the global political situation, historical material conditions, political economy and how the American and Global system work. An example is the New Afrikan Provisional Government and many of its umbrella organization. Even though they fight for a righteous goal, there is no attempt to build an expanding political machine that can effectively fight for that goal. Their actions reek of “magical thinking”, in that they cling to the old traditions of the Black Power Movement of the 70’s and alienate themselves from mainstream black culture instead of using what existing revolutionary potential to their advantage. The cultural nationalist trope of changing to Arab/African names or using precise ideological language may be a good group cohesion tool, but it will not have any significant impact on freeing ourselves.

 Many religious organizations are ripe with magical thinking. Magical thinking and religion are not the same thing. People who are religious can make clear, objective, and rational decisions while atheists can fall into the trappings of magical thinking. People who are religious are more susceptible to it as it is more acceptable socially to say that “God will protect you from harm”, or that “the spirit of the Ancestors are with us”. Black churches in general perform as a reactionary institution in our community by funneling righteous black anger into efforts that have proven to fail time and time again rather than efforts that are effective. Two examples that a Shreveport resident should resonate with is the “Day of Prayer” over the July 4th mass shooting in the MLK neighborhood and the frequent calls for mobilization of the black vote done almost every election season.

            Another attempt at magical thinking is the growth of many Black Power Pimps such as Umar Johnson. Umar has no understanding of history, no understanding of organizational tactics and no understanding of reality. He simply uses the face of black power to gain clout and enrich himself. Blacks fall for him due to the widespread ignorance problem that we as a people have about our own history and the history of the world. Umar is not effective at all except for enriching himself and gaining “clout”. The Hotep movement and the “Afro-Centric” movement are key examples of the ignorance our people have of world history and our role in it. Yes, Africa has produced a healthy number of scholars and has contributed a lot to the collective knowledge of humanity, but not everything under the sun is black. The Hotep people have bastardized our understanding of African History by pushing the false notion that everything African is Nubian or Egyptian and that we should worship the Sun. These sub-movements/cultures also push the notion that a body of work produced by one ethnic/racial regime that was later used by another thousands of years ago matters regarding our liberation. Our magical thinking has caused the Black Power Movement to adopt a dysfunctional view of history and with that a dysfunctional world view. Without a proper understanding of the history of our people on this continent, Africa, the world, and the dialectical relationship they all have with each other, then we will be doomed to live in our hellish condition.

There is no attempt to build effective organizations that can outlive a particular figure head in many of out organizations. An example is the African Peoples Socialist Party, which is essentially a cult around the 81-year-old Omali Yeshitela. Their ideals are righteous and pure, but I do not see them becoming any significant force due to members’ irrational clinginess and cultish-ness to the octogenarian.  There are more examples, such as the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party. These organizations are cults around key figures, which without them would probably fade into further insignificant. There is no attempt at internal critique of these organizations and no room for significant debate on tactics and strategies. The APSP’s over emphases on “Pan-Africanism” as it’s core ideology will be its downfall. Pan-Africanism is a geopolitical strategy and nothing more than that. Pan-Africanism is not an understanding of the current geo-political order, macro-societal trends nor is it an understanding of capitalism and its flavors. The APSP has made little attempt to exploit the recent fanfare regarding the state’s repression against it. It has not tried to recruit new members, collaborate with other organizations nor has it expanded into new cities. Similar can be said of the Nation of Islam or the cult of Farrakhan. There is no real organizing going on to achieve any meaningful change in the status quo. The Nation of Islam is selling the same papers on the same corners that no one will read. They are still peddling their leaders’ CDs and books to people who increasingly cannot afford them. They would understand this if they incorporated some political economy into their reading list and incorporated a rigorous study of how American Society works and who runs it.

The tendency of new Black Power organizations is to fade into obscurity after a few months or never gain traction to begin with. An example is “Black alliance for Peace”, which started in 2017 and has remained to have zero chances of impacting our conditions and or changing the current plutocracy. They have potential, but they, like many people who would call themselves black revolutionaries, have distanced themselves from the masses of our people. A lot of this has to do with the strategic alliance of the black electorate and the liberal elites who rule this country and the belief that the cultural issues that the liberal ruling coalition espouse are those shared by the black masses. There is also a faulty understanding of the significance of international politics on the thinking of the masses of Black people in this country. No one cares about international politics. What our people want is decent conditions, material things and a sense of belonging like everyone else. It is necessary for a cadre of political organizers to understand these issues and to incorporate the understandings of international contradictions to the work they do, but it being the focal point of your organizing will not win over a substantial number of Black Americans. A black political organization should play on these needs and use them for its own ends, not ignore them and fall into the trappings of academia and esoteric talking points. The BAP is still a very useful organization that is connecting the Black Liberation movement to the rest of the world, but they would do best as an appendage of a coalition of BPM/BLM organization rather than a stand-alone coalition.

What would a scientific Black Power Movement and its ideal organization look like it. It would look like any other but with three main differences. It should have a well defined goal. Many of the organizations already have that, an example is the Provisional Government of new Africa which has a goal of the establishment of a Black Nation State within the South. Second, it should be in tune with all tendencies of the black masses, no matter how backward and reactionary those tendencies may be. How that organization thinks internally is of no use for us to discuss, but how it interacts with the masses of black people, it needs to be in lockstep behind to have any chance of growing a significant power base. The third thing is that it must be completely scientific in its methodology. The actions of the organization must be proven by the historical record and newly obtained data on strategies and tactics. There should be no moral inhibitions on the tactics used, the only inhibitions should be logic and reasoning. There should be no inhibition based on ideology on the tactics to be used as well. Everything must be on the table as to what should be done. The methodology of determining what tactics should be used should be strictly scientific. The scientific method is one of observation, hypothesis, testing, conclusions, and debate. It is based on data, either qualitative or quantitative. Every action should be data driven, not ideologically driven. Ideology should only be present in the end goal; it should not be a factor on the way to the end result. This should be the core of any organization. Getting from A to C is the objective, whatever B looks like is irrelevant.

References:

BLM Scam:

https://apnews.com/article/black-lives-matter-fraud-lawsuit-donations-ruling-da8e7b25a5f2b1dc806af4d44a179078