White People Take a Stand Against War on the African Community!

These Uhuru guys are some kind of weird cult, akin to the Krishnas or the moonies. If you live in Oakland, you've probably encountered them on numerous occasions. Look for a white guy in front of the Safeway selling inedible looking baked goods to "support the black community." I think they also have one of those donate-your-car scams going. Well, I actually do a lot of work in my community and I don't know anyone who's ever gotten any money from these people.

They're driven by some kind of mixture of liberal white guilt and a paternalitic need to "help out the black community" which conjures up images of the White Man's Burden of a century ago.

Personally, as a black man, I find them nearly as offensive as if they were overt racists.

We can take care of ourselves, folks. The last thing we need is a bunch of brainwashed followers of a charismatic cult telling us what our problems are.

I agree with the poster above, groups like this are a sink hole of accountability and credibility, much less proven record of doing anything to help anyone. At least they allow a ethnically mixed ensemble to do their footwork. Fortunately, unlike Yusuf Bey’s goons, I don’t see them patrolling the streets in the name of taking back what they think is theirs, nor do you have a soon-to-be-convicted pedaphile at the top of the bunch. But, not every group can aspire to this level of organization and criminal activity. Regardless, their position and politic ensure that their voice is head as shrill and from the margins of any realistic debate.

I trust the readership of Indy media can find out for themselves about the political understandings of the Uhuru movement. We are not about charity and not about cults. The Uhuru Movement represents the interests of the African working class and is not only in Oakland, but is in Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, NYC, St. Petersburg Florida, Durban, South Africa, London, England and other places.

Interesting that this writer would refuse to name who he is except that he is "a black man," neglect to address the issue at hand which is the acquittal of the "Riders," and provide instead slander that is designed to turn people away from getting involved with an organization that is taking on the issue of self-determination for African people. Plus, never have I heard anyone call an Uhuru Holiday pie inedible, so this guy is definitely unique!

The African People's Solidarity Committee was formed by the African People's Socialist Party to organize white people around reparations. We are convinced that the future of the planet is interconncected with the fate of Africa and African people. We also know that African people are their own liberators, but have answered the call of the African People's Socialist Party to organize white people to take the right stand and to depart from a history of complicity with this social system, that was born from the slave trade and the theft of indigenous peoples' lands. That's why we are even here -these things happened in history - white people stole, pillaged, took over, lynched, became police officers, became wealthy off the backs of everyone else on the planet.

We do fundraising in Oakland and all throughout the Bay Area that supports the work of the APSP. There are APSP members in Oakland and there is an Uhuru House community center with meetings happening every Wednesday night at 7pm - 7911 MacArthur Blvd.

Anyone can get in touch with APSC in Oakland by emailing uhurureparations [at] yahoo.com.

I invite you to come out to an event, "the Occupation Began in 1492" Thursday, October 2nd (tomorrow, as I write) which will be at the Fellowship Humanist Hall at 390-27th St. (between Broadway and Telegraph) in Oakland.
You'll hear from Uhuru Movement leaders Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and the Barrio Defense Committee, Committee for Human Rights in the Phillipines, the Barrio Defense Committee and the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee addressing the history of the beast that is the United States government, the same government now occupying both Iraq and the African community right here.

Call me if you need a ride.

-Wendy
510-295-7834

PS
You can also check out:

http://www.uhurureparations.org
http://www.burningspearuhuru.com
http://www.inpdum.com
http://www.apedf.org

for more info about the Uhuru Movement.

We are not about cults (((?)))

yes you are...
you are one of the more notable cults operating in the bay area at this time
Your reputation proceeds you!

anyone in the bay area needs to approach these uhuru goons with caution. they turned the rodney king verdict into a gay bashing witch hunt when they feared other activist groups were getting their point across.

as others have posted, they do nothing for the community. they are guilt mongering parasites whose greatest contribution is selling bean pies and sausage, hardly the health food any of us needs.

and where is their leader omali yeshiteli from? st. petersburg florida, just around the corner from the scientologists in clearwater florida. need you say any more? cult demagogues that flock together....

...execept, stangely, the scientologists make a little more sense and you dont have to fear their thuggery or con artistry so much...

Yup these people are nuts. I've seen them around and for all the "organizing" they do I have yet to hear of one concrete thing thy've accomplished. I also second the negative comment about the baked goods.

Thankfully jokers like Wendy and Matthew will continue to marginalize themselves with their ridiculus rhetoric. Like this gem:

"the beast that is the United States government"

Please, be real. The governments that truly behave like "beasts" are the Stalinist single-party states that you nut-jobs continue to support.

As far as thuggery, I am more worried about the "Your Black Muslim Bakery" goons that these twerps.

Yusuf Bey just died.

I think this obituary description is just inappropriate, considering the number of victims. They are linked to a murder in Berkeley, torturing adults in order to get favorable business conditions, and he raped more than the 4 children described in the obituary. He has about 42 kids, and the Eastbay Express stories by Chris Thompson list people in addition to the 4 involved in the lawsuit who were raped and molested by him. The way they're focusing on his 'good side' is inappropriate- even dictators might have a trait like being patrons of the arts or liking children: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/10/02/BA158675.DTL

is that we have names, faces, organizational relationships, and contact info. we endorse a program to challenge the status quo. we'd be happy to have an open, public debate on the politics and/or the many, many political victories of the uhuru movement over the years in the bay area and around the u.s. we have events where you can come meet us and air any differences or bad feelings you might have about uhuru.

then you have these slimey slander-mongers who attack us on indymedia as they are doing here. they've got no identity. they've got no program. they've got no organization. they certainly have no accomplishments to speak of. they offer nothing, for example, to challenge the riders verdict with. they are terrified of the light of day. all they've got is the status qou that the tirelessy fight to defend with wretched, bilious slander, that they can't defend in an open public arena.

readers should decide which side in this discussion carries integrity. those who with the integrity themselves to not rely on slander when forming opinions about political organizations should come out to this event tonight:

http://em-w.com/occupation8x11.pdf

uhuru means freedom!
matthew

Stick a wood burner in a womans mouth, and then you can start another cult - Kwaanzaa.

Sure they debate in public, with punches and kicks. And get real--your description of social reality comes straight out of comic books.

And those so-called baked "goods" are just plain nasty and inedible. Verisimilitude begs that you call them "baked bads."

Sure Matthew and Wendy and Penny, you have names and banal loyalty to a sick cult, but what you did to Alex Vitale in 1992 will never be forgotten nor forgiven. I saw it with my own eyes and the Klan couldn't have been more barbaric gay bashers. Violent attacks like that was the Uhuru nut cases showing their true colors.

AVJ

you equate a fist fight in a park ten years ago where a white guy got punched, with the klu klux klan, a terrorist group which burned thousands of african people alive, hung thousands of africans from trees, and terrorized millions of african people over the century of its existence.

your white nationalism is quite telling, broken jaw. no wonder you would hate an organization such as uhuru, which seeks african community self-determination.

is that you kevin? anyway, you make case and point: anonymous name calling and slander vs. a real organization which has events, open meetings, and real campaigns in the real world.

keep it real kevin! someday grow a pair and call me "door matt" to my face!

the great fistfight of '92, that keeps coming up and coming up and coming up whenver uhuru invites white people to been in solidarity with the struggles of the african community, has already been rehashed on this site. those interested in following a thread on it, go to http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1550456.

uhuru means freedom!
matthew

Black separatist groups like Uhuru play the same role in the US that Buthelezi and his thugs played in South Africa -- a militant-sounding smoke-screen for Uncle Toms who aid and abet racial oppression in the hopes of eeking out a position of petty privilege for themselves as the mediators of oppression.

Imperialism has always relied upon a divide-and-conquer strategy for the maintenance of class rule. Today, the imperialists can rely (in part) upon separatists like Uhuru to be purveyors of apartheid within the Black community. Is there anyone who honestly believes separatism is a path for Black Liberation in this country?

Any movement that can legitimately challenge oppression will have to built on an integrationist foundation -- embracing not only a strong component of Black leadership, but also gays, women and other oppressed groups, and most importantly, not fall in to the death trap of simply trying to lift up a few token Black "leaders" to join the ranks of the oppressors like Uhuru does, but recognize that racial oppression is bound up with class oppression and only an integrated movement that fights oppression on a class basis can move forward toward a genuinely just society. Uhuru is just Black Zionism.

Being a "progressive" used to mean that when you saw someone wielding a whip against another human being, you sided unequivocally with the victim's right to snatch the whip from the hands of the oppressor. Today, what passes as progressivism is the believe that if you are Black, you fight for the right for Blacks to wield the whip, if you are gay, you fight for gays to wield the whip, if you are a feminist, you fight for women to be able to wield the whip, if you are Zionist, you fight for a "homeland" where only Jews wield the whips... and so on. The Left needs to find its way again and understand that all of these issues are bound up with the issue of class oppression, and if there is ever to be an effective progressive movement in this country again, partisans of the oppressed must break with those who simply seek to integrate the ranks of the oppressors.

We need to turn the right's culture war into a class war in this country! For Worker's Democracy, not a "Left"-wing aristocracy! There is no other path that can possibly lead to victory or peace.

Here's an excellent contribution to the debate. Uhuru probably would censor this if they had any control, but I'd like to see them deal with its content without their usual facile denunciation. So Uhuhu Housers, what about it? And we're not Keating, so deal with the ideas, not your petty squabbles and vindettas. __________________________________________ On Reparations By Adolph Reed [Editor's note: This article first appeared in the Progressive in December 2000, and is reprinted with permission.] The notion that the United States government, or white institutions in general, owe reparations to black Americans for slavery and its legacy has been around for some time. Until recently, its most dramatic eruption into public life was in 1969, when James Forman, former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), led a disruption of New York's liberal Riverside Church to present a "Black Manifesto" that demanded, among other things, $500 million in reparations to black Americans from white churches and synagogues. The idea lingered on the periphery of the public agenda for a few years, so that Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH and the National Economics Association, the black economists' group, attempted to reintroduce it in 1972, around the presidential election, in conjunction with a demand for a $900 million "freedom budget." Otherwise, the idea of organizing to demand reparations for black people's uncompensated labor in slavery and for other injustices associated with the long history of enforced racial inequality had circulated mainly within politically marginal, nationalist circles. It had not gained much traction even among black activists. During the last half-dozen years or so, however, the issue has been threatening to come in from the margins. Partly stimulated by successful pursuit of compensation for Japanese-Americans who were interned by the U.S. government during World War II and for victims of Nazi slave labor, talk of a movement to demand reparations for black Americans has been spreading beyond the nationalist enclaves where it has usually been contained. I've watched with curiosity and bemusement as talk about reparations for black Americans has germinated. At first I assumed that I was noticing it more because it emanated from familiar circles with roots in the Black Power activism of the 1960s, especially in big cities like New York and Chicago. For instance, at its formation the Black Radical Congress adopted the issue as one of its key campaigns. Still, I imagined that the reparations talk would evaporate because it seemed so clearly a political dead end. No such luck. Publication of The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, by Randall Robinson, the respected president of TransAfrica, the organization that played a central role in the U.S. movement against apartheid in South Africa, seems to have propelled the reparations issue into the public spotlight. Now it seems to be everywhere -- in special features on network television and mainstream publications like Harper's and the New York Times and all over the black- oriented media. How has this happened? And what is its significance? To put it more provocatively, how does a project that seems so obviously a nonstarter in American politics come to capture so much of the public imagination? After all, support for affirmative action has eroded significantly, and reparations raises the ante on compensatory policy exponentially. And why does this idea attain currency now? Answering these questions requires, first, understanding that the call for reparations blends material, symbolic and psychological objectives. The material component is the most obvious -- a demand for remuneration for the uncompensated labor of black slaves and the legacy of slavery. The material legacy includes direct consequences such as the federal government's failure to fulfil the promise of Emancipation by adopting the Radical Republican proposals during Reconstruction after the Civil War that would have expropriated the plantations in the South and divided them among the freedpeople, thus establishing a black yeomanry of independent stakeholders. These also include the federal government's further capitulation to the former slaveholders by accepting their disfranchisement of black voters later in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the effect of which was to remove black citizens from effective participation in public life and to facilitate imposition of the white supremacist regime of official political and economic apartheid that reigned in the South for the first two-thirds of the 20th century. (From this perspective, it is worthy of note that every national government -- every presidential administration, congress and federal judiciary -- that served between 1877 and 1966 did so in clear, though unacknowledged, violation of the U.S. Constitution. Each was elected from, or nominated and confirmed by those elected from, national electorates that, in the southern states at least, violated blacks' equal citizenship rights under the 14th Amendment and voting rights under the 15th. Small wonder that, for instance, at least one Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court -- Edward D. White -- was a Ku Klux Klansman, as well as a veteran of a white supremacist military insurrection against the Reconstruction government of Louisiana in 1874.) The indirect material legacy of slavery includes the complex of discriminatory practices enforced, and reproduced with governmental acquiescence, throughout the nation in generations subsequent to Emancipation. These include explicitly discriminatory practices such the Federal Housing Administration's enforcement of racially exclusionary "restrictive covenants" in its lending policies officially until 1948 and unofficially for some years thereafter; this practice severely disadvantaged black people's pursuit of homeownership, the principal form of capital accumulation for most Americans. The effects of unequal education, labor market discrimination and publicly initiated and supported ghettoization also can be seen as indirect material legacies of slavery. We could also include the effects of New Deal compromises with southern Democrats -- largely racially-inspired -- that excluded most black workers from initial coverage under social security and agricultural assistance. The list could expand indefinitely. The reparations frame no doubt appeals partly as a unifying metaphor that expresses the historical linkage of what conventional racial liberalism construes as separate, isolated moments of injustice. This is an important corrective, though it's one that can easily occur without the call for reparations. The frame also appeals to lawyers, economists and other people who like to play intellectual parlor games, inasmuch as calculation of the extent of economic and social costs of slavery and racial injustice to their victims across generations can consume endless energy, discussion and professional expertise. Indeed, the question of material compensation opens a plethora of technical issues. Should payments go to individuals or to some presumably representative corporate entity? If the former, who qualifies as a recipient? Would descendents of people who had been enslaved elsewhere (for instance, Brazil or the Caribbean) be eligible? And what of those no longer legally black people with slave ancestors? As a friend of mine has suggested, these issues could produce a lively trade for genealogists, DNA testers and other such quacks, and already some seem to be rising to the opportunity. These ambiguities, moreover, expose the faultiness of comparisons to payments to victims of Japanese internment and Nazi slave labor camps, who were identifiable individuals whose experience of the ultimate injustice was direct. If the recipient is to be some corporate entity, as Robinson and others suggest, how can its representativeness and accountability be determined? If the body is a development fund, who would control it and how would the decision be made? Robinson has suggested that philanthropic agencies be the grantees, but which ones and to whom would they be accountable? This talk -- as is standard in contemporary black politics -- presumes a coherent, knowable black agenda that can be determined outside of democratic, participatory processes among those in whose names decisions are to be made and resources allocated. In some of the more grandiosely Pan-Africanist versions of reparations talk the focus of the demand for retribution is global -- including African and, presumably, Caribbean debt relief, and other forms of retribution involving both the United States, former colonial powers and international lending agencies. But this approach only expands the problems intrinsic to the domestic focus and makes goals even more diffuse and remote, and the task more impossibly daunting. The reparations campaign's symbolic objectives seem to center on public acknowledgment of the injustices inflicted on black people historically in this country. On the one hand, this opens to public education about the real history of the United States, although that is a project that does not require the rhetoric of reparations. On the other hand, it fits the Clintonoid tenor of sappy public apologies and maudlin psychobabble about collective pain and healing. Robinson, for his part, seems fixated on pursuing racial parity in monuments and statuary -- perhaps a function of his long years in Washington D.C. and his growing up in Richmond, Va., two cities in which the politics of public monuments loom larger than elsewhere. (And how much would you bet that that's as far as the retribution would go? Elites will always prefer symbolic gestures to material ones: "Let's see, should we give them college tuition and affordable housing or a heartfelt apology and a few monuments and plaques? Hmmm, which will it be, which will it be?") Its psychological objectives, though, are most revealing of the politics that undergirds this movement. The psychological argument for agitating for reparations first of all makes concessions to the improbability of success. The demand is held to be important as a means of raising consciousness among black people, whether or not it can be won. But consciousness of what? Among more populist or radical adherents this view rests on the premise -- a vestige of the nationalist/anti-imperialist radicalism that evolved from Black Power -- that mobilizing black people to fight for a better world requires first rectifying their understanding of who they are and where they come from in order to build on the principle of racial solidarity. Of course, cultivation of a general understanding of history is useful, perhaps necessary, for developing and sustaining an insurgent politics and a good thing in its own right. However, it's more than questionable that people must -- or even will -- mobilize around earlier generations' grievances to pursue current objectives. The real point of this approach is different, as the willingness to acknowledge the cause's doubtful practicality suggests. The deeper appeal of reparations talk for its proponents is to create or stress a sense of racial peoplehood as the primary basis for political identity. As is a standard feature of the race- nationalist politics from which it originated, this movement's psychological project is grounded on beliefs that rank-and-file black people suffer from improper or defective identity and that an important task of political action is to restore correct racial consciousness, destruction or distortion of which is held to be the psychological legacy of slavery. Among some strains of cultural nationalists, this view unabashedly reproduces the old "damage thesis," recently criticized by historian Daryl Michael Scott in his book Contempt & Pity: Social Policy and the Image of the Damaged Black Psyche, 1880-1996. According to this thesis, slavery and its aftermath left black Americans without cultural moorings and therefore especially vulnerable to various social pathologies. It has been the foundation of academic and journalistic slanders of black poor and working people famously perpetrated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan's scurrilous 1965 report, The Negro Family: A Case for National Action and contemporary notions of a self-destructive black urban underclass (see my critique of the underclass idea in Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era). Less conspicuously, it has underlain much of black nationalist thought throughout the 20th century. Randall Robinson's argument for pursuit of reparations hinges explicitly on this view of the black American population -- lucky petit bourgeois people like himself excepted, of course -- as defective and in need of moral and psychological repair. And that is another source of the idea's currency: it resonates with middle class noblesse oblige and commitment to a racial politics that ensconces a particular, guiding role for upper status elites. Those are, after all, the people who can conduct the finely calibrated analyses that determine what forms and magnitude just compensation should take; they are the people who would stand to administer whatever compromise palliatives are likely to ensue from this activity. This also helps to make sense of what has struck me as most incomprehensible about the reparations movement -- its complete disregard for the simplest, most mundanely pragmatic question about any political mobilization: How can we imagine building a political force that would enable us to prevail on this issue? As with earlier Pan-Africanist ideologues, internationalist rhetoric is in part a sleight-of-hand attempt to sidestep that question by abstracting to a larger black universe. But the question ultimately does not arise because reparations talk is rooted in a different kind of politics, a politics of elite-brokerage and entreaty to the ruling class and its official conscience, the philanthropic foundations, for racial side- payments. Robinson makes this appeal unambiguously: "Until America's white ruling class accepts the fact that the book never closes on massive unredressed social wrongs, America can have no future as one people." Lest there be any doubt about the limited social vision that makes such an entreaty plausible, he brushes away the deepest foundations of American inequality: "Lamentably, there will always be poverty." His beef is that black Americans are statistically overrepresented at the bottom. It is significant as well that Jim Forman's 1969 demand was crafted at a conference funded and organized by liberal religious foundations. This is a protest politics that depends on the good will of those who hold power. By definition, it is not equipped to challenge existing relations of power and distribution other than marginally, with token gestures. There's a more insidious dynamic at work in this politics as well, which helps to understand why the reparations idea suddenly has spread so widely through mainstream political discourse. We are in one of those rare moments in American history -- like the 1880s and 1890s and the Great Depression -- when common circumstances of economic and social insecurity have strengthened the potential for building broad solidarity across race, gender and other identities around shared concerns of daily life, concerns that only the minority of comfortable and well-off can dismiss in favor of monuments and apologies and a politics of psychobabble. Concerns like access to quality health care, the right to a decent and dignified livelihood, affordable housing, quality education for all. These are objectives that can be pursued effectively only by struggling to unite a wide section of the American population who experience those concerns most acutely, the substantial majority of this population who have lost those essential social benefits or live in fear of losing them. And isn't it interesting that at such a moment the corporate-dominated opinion-shaping media discover and project a demand for racially defined reparations that cuts precisely against building such solidarity? And isn't it also interesting that Randall Robinson, mainstream poster boy for reparations advocacy, is a member of the Rockefeller family's Council on Foreign Relations? I know that many activists who have taken up the cause of reparations otherwise hold and enact a politics quite at odds with the limitations that I've described here. To some extent, I suspect their involvement stems from an old reflex of attempting to locate a progressive kernel in the nationalist sensibility. It certainly is an expression of a generally admirable commitment to go where people seem to be moving. But we must ask: What people? And where can this motion go? And we must be prepared to recognize what can be only a political dead end -- or worse. Adolph L. Reed, Jr. is Professor of Political Science on the Graduate Faculty at the New School for Social Research and is a member of the Interim National Council of the Labor Party. His most recent book is Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene (New Press).

Food for thought? Looks more like someone out to prove they can use the cut-and-paste method of research. Do you really expect people to read that pile of spam? If you have a point to make, give a clear and concise summary and a link to pedantic ramblings or legit sources. Without that, you just get lost in your own noise and the debate dissolves into my source is more [insert adjective here] that yours. But, this is the way Indymedia works: spend all your time framing the debate and not addressing the problem, here a self-interested separatist group.

In the style of Jim Jones and David Keresh, "Uhu-ru" reinvents the modern cult

"Uhu-ru" continues it's existence despite the growing awareness of it's Repression and intimidation tactics. the membership is tightly controlled and contact with non members is strongly discouraged. new prospect members are closely monitored in their interaction with out siders. information of the groups activities is tightly controlled. and the names of leaders is kept on a need to know basis,as with most cults."Uhu-ru" has tried to portrya its self as a humanrights organization but it's original founding is a spin-off from members of several un secessful cults that failed over time.

Uhuru, NOI, seperatist, integrationist, black, white, Africa, Europe, socialist, communist, anarchist, etc..

it would be more advisable to stand together against THE STATE POLICE OPPRESSION..

instead of fighting amongst yourselves about petty differences..

realize what could happen here if another Bush supporter (ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER) takes over California..

unity against oppression does not mean u have to agree with one another on every issue, but please understand we all need to stand against the facists (BUSH and CO.) in unity..

..infighting wastes time and energy..

hey to all that missed our event tonight, you missed a great fucking event! to all those who made it, thanks for coming! hope to see you again soon! here are my responses to the last three posts

to Chris:
i agree with you that the previous poster presents a wall of spam that i have no interest in responding to. however, you seem to think uhuru is a self-interested separatist group that is a "problem" here. i will respond to that. the uhuru movement stand for african self-determination and unites with struggles of oppressed people around the world. its membership is open to anybody who unites with its aspirations. how is that the character of a "self-interested separatist group." no. the "problem" here is that the uhuru movement doesn't believe that the highest aspiration for the african community is to integrate with white people. the uhuru movement believes in self determination for the african community. that will always be a "problem" for the consolidated white left, who like white people in general, are trained to believe everyone should be struggling to closer to, and more like them.

to officer "uhuru a modern day CULT!!"
where did you dredge that shit up from? the cointelpro blueprint on how to spread disinformation against an organization? are you the state?

to "2 much infighting":
i agree we need to be able to put aside our differences and confront a common enemy. but uhuru will continue to post here to share our events and information, as is our democratic right, in keeping in the guidelines of the website's publishers. we will continue to defend ourselves from attacks from those forces who would attempt to slander and isolate for doing so, as well.

people come to our events from our posts here. i imagine the controversy created by the slander mongers helps inspire many folk reading these threads to come out to our events and judge for themselves what the uhuru movement is about. thanks, kevin and the others! again, great fucking event tonight!

uhuru means freedom!

hey to all that missed our event tonight, you missed a great fucking event! to all those who made it, thanks for coming! hope to see you again soon! here are my responses to the last three posts

to Chris:
i agree with you that the previous poster presents a wall of spam that i have no interest in responding to. however, you seem to think uhuru is a self-interested separatist group that is a "problem" here. i will respond to that. the uhuru movement stand for african self-determination and unites with struggles of oppressed people around the world. its membership is open to anybody who unites with its aspirations. how is that the character of a "self-interested separatist group." no. the "problem" here is that the uhuru movement doesn't believe that the highest aspiration for the african community is to integrate with white people. the uhuru movement believes in self determination for the african community. that will always be a "problem" for the consolidated white left, who like white people in general, are trained to believe everyone should be struggling to closer to, and more like them.

to officer "uhuru a modern day CULT!!"
where did you dredge that shit up from? the cointelpro blueprint on how to spread disinformation against an organization? are you the state?

to "2 much infighting":
i agree we need to be able to put aside our differences and confront a common enemy. but uhuru will continue to post here to share our events and information, as is our democratic right, in keeping in the guidelines of the website's publishers. we will continue to defend ourselves from attacks from those forces who would attempt to slander and isolate for doing so, as well.

people come to our events from our posts here. i imagine the controversy created by the slander mongers helps inspire many folk reading these threads to come out to our events and judge for themselves what the uhuru movement is about. thanks, kevin and the others! again, great fucking event tonight!

uhuru means freedom!

where did you dredge that shit up from?

your postings, you have made it clear that this is a cult.
all you are missing are the orange robes, and shaved heads

Dear Readers-

First, thank you for taking the time to read this thread. I am writing this post to respond to a few of the false accusations and reactionary diatribes directed at the Uhuru Movement by various forces above. It is my hope that folk who read this thread and are interested in the content of the overall discussion will investigate the Uhuru Movement for themselves.

To begin, the Uhuru Movement is NOT a cult. The Uhuru Movement is a political organization that functions under the leadership of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP). The APSP was founded in 1972 by Omali Yeshitela (formerly Joseph Waller) subsequent to the U.S government's military defeat of the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960's and early 70's. The APSP in fact came together from three organizations based primarily in Florida. Namely the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO), Black Rights Fighters and the Gainesville Black Studies Group.

The APSP is not a so-called "black separatist" group. Anyone who takes the time to read the Burning Spear newspaper which is the main news organ of the APSP will see that the Uhuru Movement does not abide by such politics. In fact the APSP makes a much better and far more principled criticism of so-called "black separatist" groups that the blatantly white nationalist reactionaries above. The APSP struggles for self-determination and independence for African people in the United States and throughout the world. Furthermore, the APSP abides by an African Internationalist politic that recognizes that all peoples across the planet who suffer from imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism have a right and responsibility to struggle for their humanity, culture and independence on their own terms. Furthermore the APSP has a long, well documented history of struggling to provide solidarity to colonized peoples not only in words but in deeds. That is irrefutable. Only a complete moron would deny that in the face of the evidence.

In 1976, the African People's Socialist Party founded the African People's Solidarity Committee in St. Petersburg, Florida. APSC is organized around the task of building material support for the struggles of African and colonized peoples in the U.S and throughout the world through reparations. It is work that is not done out of "guilt" or any nonsensical stigma that those hostile to the question of white solidarity with Black liberation insist upon attaching to it. Rather it is work that is viewed by those who do it day in and day out see as an investment for a better tomorrow. WORK. Hard work that can be seen in the institutions of the Uhuru Movement such as the furniture stores and Uhuru Foods and other ventures designed to secure resources and support in the white communities throughout the U.S and around the world. APSC does not play with that question. They are not white nationalist conservatives, liberals, leftists or any other kind of politician that might say something that SOUNDS good but means nothing when it comes down to ACTUAL MATERIAL SUPPORT on the terms of the Black community itself.

The Uhuru Movement is not anti-gay. In fact, from the beginning of it's history the Party has stood in defense of the gay community's rights. That is well-documented. That needs to be said up front.

This garbage about what happened 11 years ago needs to cleared up. The incident that occured was not an attack against ACT-UP or any sector of the gay population. The "assault" that keeps being referred to was a struggle that happened between the Uhuru Movement and the white nationalist Prarie Fire Organizing Committee(PFOC) an organization that is suspected of playing a role in an attempt on Omali Yeshitela's life on February 18, 1978. During an event in San Francisco a sniper with a high powered rifle fired shots at Yeshitela during a presentation. Luckily all the shots missed and no one was injured.

The fact of the matter is ACT-UP was caught in the middle of that struggle and unfortunately a person was injured. However it needs to be clarified that the incident was taken care of and ACT-UP continues to work with the Uhuru Movement when interests converge. That is a fact. The Uhuru Movement is NOT homophobic.

The struggle that the Uhuru Movement had with Prarie Fire Organizing Committee was around it's history of intervention in the Black community under the guise of "working in solidarity" and "fighting white supremacy". PFOC in it's attempt to gain significance resorted to bankrolling gangsters and other backward forces in the black community who had no legitimate claim to being viewed as "progressive" or "revolutionary". In fact PFOC did quite well in bankrolling prisoners who were in some instances mass-murderers who had absolutely no political ties whatsoever. PFOC would bankroll these characters and provide these individuals with resources in order to build PFOC. It was done in that fashion so PFOC could show the world that they were legitimate and control the forces they gave money to in prison who for the most part were themselves ignorant of PFOC's true aims. The details of this history can be found in the archives of the Burning Spear and other sources.

Lastly, Matthew is no "doormat" as some rather pathetic folks on this thread insist upon calling him. It takes guts to do the work that Matthew does. In my view, the name calling tells a lot more about the person writing than it does about Matthew. Even more telling is the fact that those who insist upon attacking Matthew for the political line and work he abides by will not come out and debate in public.

It is my hope that this post will contribute to a better understanding of the Uhuru Movement. A lot more can be said and will later on. Please cease and desist from name calling and slander. Debate the politics and issues without resorting to childish tactics of mudslinging. That only contributes to keeping folks in ignorance which is the ultimate enemy.

Sincerely,
John Parker
Uhuru supporter

P.S.- The sources mentioned above are available and can be found at Uhuru Furniture, Etc. at 3742 Grand Avenue in Oakland, Ca. If interested in getting information about the sources mentioned above or any other information about the Uhuru Movement in general please call 510-763-3342.

P.S.S- I know this isn't the best organized response to all the things on the thread. I will check back and clarify anything that is vague. It is late and I am tired. So please forgive the sloppiness of some parts of this post. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns about any points in this post.

Dear Readers-

First, thank you for taking the time to read this thread. I am writing this post to respond to a few of the false accusations and reactionary diatribes directed at the Uhuru Movement by various forces above. It is my hope that folk who read this thread and are interested in the content of the overall discussion will investigate the Uhuru Movement for themselves.

To begin, the Uhuru Movement is NOT a cult. The Uhuru Movement is a political organization that functions under the leadership of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP). The APSP was founded in 1972 by Omali Yeshitela (formerly Joseph Waller) subsequent to the U.S government's military defeat of the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960's and early 70's. The APSP in fact came together from three organizations based primarily in Florida. Namely the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO), Black Rights Fighters and the Gainesville Black Studies Group.

The APSP is not a so-called "black separatist" group. Anyone who takes the time to read the Burning Spear newspaper which is the main news organ of the APSP will see that the Uhuru Movement does not abide by such politics. In fact the APSP makes a much better and far more principled criticism of so-called "black separatist" groups that the blatantly white nationalist reactionaries above. The APSP struggles for self-determination and independence for African people in the United States and throughout the world. Furthermore, the APSP abides by an African Internationalist politic that recognizes that all peoples across the planet who suffer from imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism have a right and responsibility to struggle for their humanity, culture and independence on their own terms. Furthermore the APSP has a long, well documented history of struggling to provide solidarity to colonized peoples not only in words but in deeds. That is irrefutable. Only a complete moron would deny that in the face of the evidence.

In 1976, the African People's Socialist Party founded the African People's Solidarity Committee in St. Petersburg, Florida. APSC is organized around the task of building material support for the struggles of African and colonized peoples in the U.S and throughout the world through reparations. It is work that is not done out of "guilt" or any nonsensical stigma that those hostile to the question of white solidarity with Black liberation insist upon attaching to it. Rather it is work that is viewed by those who do it day in and day out see as an investment for a better tomorrow. WORK. Hard work that can be seen in the institutions of the Uhuru Movement such as the furniture stores and Uhuru Foods and other ventures designed to secure resources and support in the white communities throughout the U.S and around the world. APSC does not play with that question. They are not white nationalist conservatives, liberals, leftists or any other kind of politician that might say something that SOUNDS good but means nothing when it comes down to ACTUAL MATERIAL SUPPORT on the terms of the Black community itself.

The Uhuru Movement is not anti-gay. In fact, from the beginning of it's history the Party has stood in defense of the gay community's rights. That is well-documented. That needs to be said up front.

This garbage about what happened 11 years ago needs to cleared up. The incident that occured was not an attack against ACT-UP or any sector of the gay population. The "assault" that keeps being referred to was a struggle that happened between the Uhuru Movement and the white nationalist Prarie Fire Organizing Committee(PFOC) an organization that is suspected of playing a role in an attempt on Omali Yeshitela's life on February 18, 1978. During an event in San Francisco a sniper with a high powered rifle fired shots at Yeshitela during a presentation. Luckily all the shots missed and no one was injured.

The fact of the matter is ACT-UP was caught in the middle of that struggle and unfortunately a person was injured. However it needs to be clarified that the incident was taken care of and ACT-UP continues to work with the Uhuru Movement when interests converge. That is a fact. The Uhuru Movement is NOT homophobic.

The struggle that the Uhuru Movement had with Prarie Fire Organizing Committee was around it's history of intervention in the Black community under the guise of "working in solidarity" and "fighting white supremacy". PFOC in it's attempt to gain significance resorted to bankrolling gangsters and other backward forces in the black community who had no legitimate claim to being viewed as "progressive" or "revolutionary". In fact PFOC did quite well in bankrolling prisoners who were in some instances mass-murderers who had absolutely no political ties whatsoever. PFOC would bankroll these characters and provide these individuals with resources in order to build PFOC. It was done in that fashion so PFOC could show the world that they were legitimate and control the forces they gave money to in prison who for the most part were themselves ignorant of PFOC's true aims. The details of this history can be found in the archives of the Burning Spear and other sources.

Lastly, Matthew is no "doormat" as some rather pathetic folks on this thread insist upon calling him. It takes guts to do the work that Matthew does. In my view, the name calling tells a lot more about the person writing than it does about Matthew. Even more telling is the fact that those who insist upon attacking Matthew for the political line and work he abides by will not come out and debate in public.

It is my hope that this post will contribute to a better understanding of the Uhuru Movement. A lot more can be said and will later on. Please cease and desist from name calling and slander. Debate the politics and issues without resorting to childish tactics of mudslinging. That only contributes to keeping folks in ignorance which is the ultimate enemy.

Sincerely,
John Parker
Uhuru supporter

P.S.- The sources mentioned above are available and can be found at Uhuru Furniture, Etc. at 3742 Grand Avenue in Oakland, Ca. If interested in getting information about the sources mentioned above or any other information about the Uhuru Movement in general please call 510-763-3342.

P.S.S- I know this isn't the best organized response to all the things on the thread. I will check back and clarify anything that is vague. It is late and I am tired. So please forgive the sloppiness of some parts of this post. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns about any points in this post.

Whoever was the idiot that refered to the piece by Adolph Reed as "spam" clearly does not know what they are talking abut. Professor Reed has done some fantastic work on race and class in the U.S. I wonder why the Uhuru supporters find Reed's writings so troubling.

thanks to john parker for that great contribution to this discussion.

to answer grad student's question: i can't speak for all uhuru supporters, but what i find personally troubling about adolph reed's work, at least as posted here, is the absence of the important paragraph return. secondly, what troubles me is the inability of his supporters, such as yourself, to provide a concise synopsis of his ideas.

so, again, while i can't speak for all uhuru supporters, i'm not going to waste any more time on the adolph reed article than the person who forwarded it did. that means a synopsis that proves whoever forwarded the article actually READ the article him or herself, and an overview for why the article fits into the discussion must be provided. and for christ's sake, show the decency to enter the paragraph returns to make the damn thing readable!

I was curious about what the Uhuru people think about Pueblo. Are they from a white nationalist background or do they have any connections with governmental institutions? Does the Uhuru House work with them?

Kenny

I was curious about what the Uhuru people think about Pueblo. Are they from a white nationalist background or do they have any connections with governmental institutions? Does the Uhuru House work with them?

Kenny

hi kenny, pueblo was founded by an organization called "center for third world organizing." beyond that, i don't know who is behind them. they seem to be well funded with many paid staff.

we did work together to organize some good actions around jamil muwwakkil who was murdered by six oakland police in april of 2001. since that time, pueblo has proven itself quite sectarian with regard to the uhuru movement. they've ignored the many offers we make to collaborate on projects that ostensibly seem to be of mutual concern over the years. (perhaps the fact that we seem to work separately on similar issues is the basis of your question).

most recently this sectarianism comes in the form of our work to reverse the current oakland riders acquittal. for example we extended numerous unanswered invitations to pueblo to join us in last wednesday's organizing meeting to build a collective response. finally when pressed, the said they had a "regular meeting" that night that prohibited their ability to send a rep to our center. we did attend their press conference earlier that day, and were able to speak briefly, again, after several requests and some of their invited speakers did not attend.

the uhuru movement is critical of sectarian behavior, and we think it does suggest an interest separate from that of ending the police occupation of the african community in oakland. we think our struggles with pueblo underscore an important political difference we have with them. the uhuru movement believes that the colonized african community itself will defeat police occupation of their community through a struggle for self-determination, with the help of principled allies working under the community's leadership. pueblo thinks that the "communities of color" will reform "bad" police behavior under the leadership of well-funded leftist groups with good intention.

The post above by Matthew sets an interesting light on how a separatist group like the Uhuru Movement can alienate anyone with common cause, and how differences are cast as a "struggle" against them (rather than other groups refusing to work with ideological freaks driven by personal agendas). Clearly the double speak is clear enough in this post and has made this thread most entertaining. The Uhuru Movement represented here has only been able to combat criticism with counter claims against others, but has yet to point to some verifiable results that their efforts have brought about. Now, if only more people would look upon the Nation of Islam as critically has people have here with the Uhuru Movement. Certainly they deserve much more attention...

you have yet to defend your allegation that uhuru is a "separatist group." we remain willing to work with pueblo and all orgs on campaigns of mutual interest in spite of any political differences we may have with them. some campaigns uhuru has waiged with measurable results include:

-freeing dessie woods
-freeing fred hampton jr.
-the magnificant "measure o" campagin for communty control of housing in the 80's
- the thousands-strong huey demos which took back the definition of huey newton and the black panther party from ruling class propoganda after huey was assassinated in the late 80s
- the take it to the bridge demos that got so much attention back may 01, which we lead.

those are just a few local successful campaigns off the top of my head. i'd be curious if you could point to some bay area groups with more successful measurable accomplishments you'd suggets people focus on. or do you just attack groups you don't like and avoid building anything of your own? if so, you're just a useless apologist for the status quo and a waste of time.

the reason uhuru is attacked here is because the uhuru movement calls on a movement of principled solidarity from the white community with the african community's aspiration for total liberation. its really that call for principled solidarity that is being attacked by you and others, chris.

since no such call comes from the NOI, they are not targetted on this site.

Too the Person Who Remains Anonymous-

I stated clearly that I was not there. Furthermore I made it clear that I knew Alex Vitale was not a part of Prarie Fire Organizing Committee. Read my post again. I was tired but not that tired.

The tone of your response suggests to me that you are not interested in facts muchless open,civil debate. I did not accuse you or anyone of being a COINTELPRO agent. Read my post again.

In my view I think that you are an arrogant reactionary that can not deal with the question of self determination and independence for African and colonized peoples on their terms. How sad. Anyhow I am not interested in a petty argument with you. I have better things to do with my time.

Until you can bring yourself to do more than troll the internet and sorrowfully weep about an incident that happened over 11 years ago in order to demonize the Uhuru Movement is rather pathetic. Save your crocodile tears over Alex for someone else. The Uhuru Movement moved to make amends and squashed that beef right after it happened. As far as I am concerned that is all that needs to be known. If Alex still has beef then he is more than welcome to come to an event with the Uhuru Movement on nuetral ground (if that is what he prefers) and put forward his recollection with folk and sort out the story for all those interested.

However Anonymous I doubt Alex cares as much about the incident as you do. From what I can tell Anonymous in Oaktown you have nothing but base-less accusations to stand upon. The Uhuru Movement is not a cult. The Uhuru Movement is not anti gay or homophobic either. The Uhuru Movement does not abide by a Stalinist political line. Perhaps you confused Uhuru with International A.N.S.W.E.R. or something like that.

Please post your evidence that shows Uhuru to be a cult. Don't just make empty accusations. Please show evidence that the Uhuru Movement is anti-gay and homophobic. Don't just make an empty declaration. For that matter, provide evidence to back up all of your accusations henceforth.

Sincerely,
John Parker

matthew

the reason uhuru is attacked here is because the uhuru movement is that you are operating a CULT!
in every since of the word.
you are trying to spin this to give the appearance that this group has some political agenda (like the SLA )
but when it comes down to it you guy's will go the Jim Jones rout.

To the Guy Who Insists on Calling Uhuru a Cult-

Once again I must ask if you can supply EVIDENCE of the Uhuru Movement being a "cult"? What EVIDENCE do you possess that backs up your ridiculuous accusation? Please cite your sources instead of simply offering baseless accusations punctuated with exclamation points. Obviously you have never taken a debate class muchless a basic Argument and Style writing class in your lifetime. Perhaps you may want to consider such an option so that you will cease and desist from coming across as a complete imbecile. Please pick up a couple of books on the subjects and commit yourself to the goal of mastering the basic points.

Sincerely,

John Parker

An anonymous poster mentioned something about "stalinists" and it made me wonder about Uhuru's organizational structure. From talking to members at demos I've been given the impression that it's pretty rigidly "top-down". And some friends who are much more politically sophisticated than I am--and who also have been active in the Bay Area since the 60s--tell me that your group is "volunteerist" because some people work for the interest of others, instead of liberating themselves. My question then is: are some people less equal than others? Where do Asians, like the Chinese masses, fit in your racial hierarchy? And is what they are doing to the Tibetans oppressive? Or why not?

And groups I've been in like Food-not-Bombs and the Coalition of the Homeless work on a consensus model where everyone gets their say. Does the Uhuru House or the larger organization have any similiar processes? Or is there a "central committee" like the Marxist-Leninist model that most groups with "socialist" in their names use? Maybe that's where the confusion comes from around the Stalinist accusation. From what little I've learned of your group, it seems like Yeshiteli assumes a Lenin like role as the larger group is like the Bolsheviks in being a "vanguard" organization. Is this true? And if you don't use consensus, what do you use: Robert's Rules?

I think the cult accusation comes because there is some mystery around your group and its connections to the Black Pathers. Is Yeshiteli from Oakland? Did he work with Huey Newton? If you cleared lots of this stuff up, it would be harder for critics for misrepresent your group. I'm curious to hear more from others in different groups who've been involved in Oakland politics going back to the 60s.

Kenny

I agree that the Chronicle's obit on Yusuf Bey, headlined "Black Muslim leader Bey dies; battled cancer. Remembered for opening doors to down-and-out ," was amazingly fawning given what is now known about this dirt bag. An more appropriately objective heading might have been "Accused rapist and child molester Bey dies. Once held the respect of many in Oakland's black community."

Regarding his multiple rape accusations, it mildly refers to "Bey's brush with the law..." No mention is made of the Bey family's brutal history, well-documented in Chris Thonmpson's 2002 East Bay Express series http://www.eastbayexpress.com/special_reports/blood. And it has continued into the recent past when the longtime (black) owner of a cafe/BBQ was brutalized by Bey's thugs after Bey bought the building and demanded he stop serving pork ribs.

I went down there yesterday and had a big plate o' ribs in memory of this pile of pig feces.

does the Uhuru House, or the larger group it's a front for, have a contract out on remaining members of Prairie Fire? why?

is there some type of monopoly that Uhuru has, where they are in-charge of organizing whites to fight for reparations? and do they have the same monopoly over black organizing as well?

what kind of working relationship does Uhuru have with Your Black Muslim Bakery? whose bean pies are better?

dm

the uhuru argument seems pretty closed and narrow and they do very little to build bridges to other groups. you are either with them or you are denounced as a white nationalist--even if, like me, you are mixed race. same with other groups.

i found this fascinating interview around african struggles, that even has james carr's memoir, "bad", in the suggested readings at the end. carr's evolution is one of the most inspiring to come out of the black struggle for liberation. he went from being in the george jackson brigade to the panthers and was becoming interested in the situationists and anti-state marxists like karl korsh when he was assassinated in the south bay after just getting out of prison.

read this article and read james carr's "bad".

http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no9/panthers.htm

johnbrown

Dear Readers-

First of all, the Uhuru Movement does not have a contract out on anyone nor has it ever had a contract on any political opponents. That question should be directed at Prarie Fire Organizing Committee who not only has a history of promoting gangsterism in the name of political struggle but has on at least two occasions attempted to physically atack the African People's Socialist Party. These incidents occured in the late 1970's in the Bay Area.

Secondly, the Uhuru Movement does not claim to have a "monopoly" on the direction of the Black Liberation Movement. The accusation that the Uhuru Movement is "sectarian" is absolutely groundless. The Uhuru Movement has and is always willing to work with other groups around various struggles concerning the broad interests of the African working class. However the Uhuru Movement does maintain and consistently struggles for the right of African people to struggle for self-determination and independence as a people. An African people.

To clarify, this is not a "narrow nationalist" politic as many white nationalist liberals and leftists like to pretend. The Uhuru Movement does not abide by a narrow black and white worldview as many like to charge. The Uhuru Movement recognizes that ALL peoples on the planet have right to struggle for self-determination and independence as a people. Not simply in words and well-wishing but in deed.

All one has to do is investigate the history of the APSP-led Uhuru Movement to see that it has and continues to work with national liberation movements in the U.S and throughout the world. Much of the evidence can be found in the Burning Spear newspaper that serves as the main organ of the organization. If one is interested in learning more about the political theory and practice of the Uhuru Movement should take some time to study these sources. The Burning Spear can be obtained at the Uhuru House at 7911 MacArthuer Blvd in East Oakland or at Uhuru Furniture Etc. that is located at 3742 Grand Ave in Oakland, California.

Furthermore the Uhuru Movement believes that North Americans (whites) need to stand in solidartity with the struggle of African and colonized peoples in the U.S and throughout the world. It is a politic that recognizes that it is the historical unity that white people have had with the North American State that is a main contradiction. The Uhuru Movement understands that the entire so-called white population (including the minute poverty stricken few) has always stood in opposition to the non-white world. Notwithstanding the efforts of the occasional John Browns throughout history that have attempted to take a decent stand against the oppressive conditions imposed upon Africans by U.S imperialism.

I hope some of what is written here will suffice for now. I would encourage those on this list to take the time to come to an event or stop by one of the above mentioned institutions and dialogue with a representative of the organization so all of your questions can be thoroughly answered. Uhuru.

Sincerely,

John Parker

john parker and uhuru demonstrate was others on this thread have correctly identified as "cult" behavior. While they constantly say they are willing to debate, they certainly don't do it on this thread--constantly cajole us to come to one of THEIR events and get recruited by one of their minions in person. people like john are often "too tired" to respond to the dialogue that's going on in this thread and answer even mild criticism with the accusation of the poster being a "white nationalist liberal or leftist" while they have no fucking idea the ethnicity of the poster nor do they have very much of a clue of their political affiliations.

matthew constantly brags about how great uhuru's deeds have been, but those of us who are life-long east bay dwellers have seen nothing but acrimony , devisive behavior and denunciations spewing from their, at times very vile, mouths.

the comparisons to looney leftist cults with stalinist ideology show uhuru along classical cultist lines. even more frightening is their parallels with religious cults from the hare krisnas to the moonies to the scientologist to fundamentalisms of varying stripes. this can be seen in their use of buzz words reflecting their OWN cosmology and those not subscribing to it are instantly enemies and then are either the personification of evil or are cointelpro agents if they question all these cult-like qualities.

and john's flaky hypocracy around prairie fire reflects the danger of such closed cults. be extremely cautious in dealing with these nuts because they not only have a deranged and deluded sense of reality, but can be extremely violent to boot.

in short, avoid them and don't antagonize them because there's no telling what they would do to you if you are perceived as a threat. and don't eat the crappy food that they peddle like good little petty bourgeois merchants--it's nasty and inedible. your black muslim bakery is actually better and just as nutty of a hate-mongering group.

Diamat

Excuse me at least I am using my real name Diamat. I have nothing to hide Diamat. I have not copped out of any of the arguments you have put forward. Diamat- I must conclude that you are not interested in a genuine dialogue. It is clear now that nothing I write will satisfy you. That is a shame.

Anyhow I am comfortable with the quality of my responses on this thread and am confident that other folk who take the time to go through the thread will see that I have been forthright and balanced in regard to the issues I have addressed. In closing Diamat I urge you to take the advice I gave above and learn how to debate and argue with evidence. Something that is clearly lacking in your heretofore posts that contain nothing but sour grapes, baseless accusations and pathetic slander. Troll on Diamat. Troll on.

Sincerely,

John Parker

kenny wrote: "An anonymous poster mentioned..."

"an anonymous poster." yes. my posts, john parker's intelligent and well written ones, and now yours have all pointed something out. all uhuru's opponents remain anonymous, while only john, myself and you offer a real name in this discussion and/or some contact info. not only that, but rarely does the same "handle" in opposition to the uhuru movement present itself in more than one post. therefore, uhuru's opponents here either can't muster a rebut to us, or they just post with another "handle" to appear greater in numbers, without responsibility for their earlier missives. pathetic cowardice either way, if you ask me.

..."something about "stalinists" and it made me wonder about Uhuru's organizational structure. From talking to members at demos I've been given the impression that it's pretty rigidly "top-down". And some friends who are much more politically sophisticated than I am--and who also have been active in the Bay Area since the 60s--tell me that your group is "volunteerist" because some people work for the interest of others, instead of liberating themselves. My question then is: are some people less equal than others? Where do Asians, like the Chinese masses, fit in your racial hierarchy? And is what they are doing to the Tibetans oppressive? Or why not?"

so far i haven't found an honest definition of "stalinist." if someone would like to provide an honest definition of "stalinist' is i'd appreciate it. the APSP and the uhuru movement follows the principle of democratic centralism and criticism/self-criticism. we don't have a "racial hierarchy" for the chinese masses to fit into. regardless, the slanderous charges of us being a "cult" here have nothing to with our organizational structure. it has everything to do with our demand that principled white people unite with the right for self determination of african people.

"I think the cult accusation comes because there is some mystery around your group and its connections to the Black Pathers. Is Yeshiteli from Oakland? Did he work with Huey Newton? If you cleared lots of this stuff up, it would be harder for critics for misrepresent your group. I'm curious to hear more from others in different groups who've been involved in Oakland politics going back to the 60s."

the cult accusation has nothing to do with the APSP relationships to the BPP. it has everything to do with the challenge from the uhuru movement for white people to unite with self-determination for african people. its yeshitela, not yeshiteli. he's from st. petersburg florida. he lived and worked in oakland from the early 80's to the mid 90's. the chairman and the party worked with huey directly before he was assassinated in '89.

Matthew wrote:

>the chairman and the party worked with huey directly >before he was assassinated in '89

Does that mean that the chairman was using substances too? Was he and the party involved in dealing with Huey? And did he go back to Florida for detox? Is he recovered now?

I know the party is involved in empowering blacks with businesses, much like Bey did with the Your Black Muslim Bakeries and other businesses. Did they have hard times back with Huey where they had to turn to drug dealing?

Sam

with that kind of bile, you should get a job with the oakland tribune, if you're not on the payroll already! they'd love you.

Hey Matthew,

Does that mean that your answer is a defensive posture and it's actually true? If I remember correctly, the East Bay Express did a pretty good expose about how Huey was a crackhead and had burned a couple people and got knocked off for it--all while he was on a binge. Sure, I know you'll say that the Express reporter was a Cointelpro agent, but people from West Oakland have told me they saw Huey jonesing for a rock.

So, to rephrase my question: did Omali party with Huey. Or were they both part of some Marion Barry type sting where they weren't really crackheads, but were seduced into it against their will by CIA mind control experiments.

Or, what I expect I'll hear is that is was a state-run assasination job and the crack was just planted on Huey. Or maybe you'll get creative and tell us who Dave Emory thinks is behind it.

A curious mind HAS to know.

Sam

(the image is is from the "Huey Lives!" demos led by African People's Socialist Party after his assassination in 1989)

yes, sam that was my final answer to your disgusting questions.

i will add, though, that freedom loving people love huey newton for what his courageous stand and what he represented in the '60s. we love huey in spite of the fact that he fell victim to the u.s. government's chemical warfare against the african community in the form of crack cocaine. he fell victim to this chemical warfare after they murdered and jailed many of his comrades in the black panther party, while the white left and liberals stood on the sidelines watching silently.

on the other hand, white power- loving shitheels and worms dredge up huey's struggles with substance abuse in an effort to bury the legacy of the black panther party for ever.

Sam (But mostly to other readers)-

For the purposes of responding to your questions I am going to ignore the reactionary posture and tone of your questions regarding Huey P. Newton and Omali Yeshitela. In fact, I am not so much writing this for you but for other folk who may come across this thread. It is clear that you have no genuine interest invested in the questions you have raised.

First of all, Huey P. Newton did certainly have a drug problem in the last years of his life. He struggled with both alcohol and cocaine addiction. And no it was not a CIA mind control plan that made Huey P. Newton use drugs. However it can safely be said that it was a CIA drug importation plan that contributed to Newton's addiction. Spare me the denials. Everyone knows that the white house is the rock house and that Uncle Sam is the Pusherman.

DId Omali Yeshitela "party" with Huey P. Newton? Absolutely not. How you even got to the point of being able to form that question in your mind is beyond me. Obviously you know absolutely nothing about Omali Yeshitela and the Uhuru Movement. If you did that question would never have come to mind in the first place.

Not that it matters Yeshitela and the National Office of the African People's Socialist Party moved back to St. Petersburg in 1993 because the APSP has a strong base of popular support in the Tampa Bay area. If you or anyone has any doubts about that fact I would suggest that you check the archives of St. Petersburg Times on the internet and do some research. The evidence speaks for itself.

It is unfortunate that folk such as Sam feel the need to resort to insiduous, slander-filled lines of questioning in a pathetic attempt to frustrate honest attempts at dialogue and debate. The line of questioning reveals them to be dishonest trolls who can not bring themselves to deal honestly with the politics and struggles put forward by the Uhuru Movement in the interest of the African working class. Instead these forces feel it is necessary to pose insipid, nonsensical questions that are designed for the purpose of wasting folks' time and energy.

I took the time to respond in order to flip the script and take down the slander against Huey P. Newton. Whether Huey used drugs or not is not what is the most important thing about Huey P. Newton. It was his contributions to the struggle for Black Liberation that are the most important. After all Huey P. Newton was not dogged out by the OPD, the FBI and the North American State because he may have done some drugs. He was hounded throughout his life for the stance that he took in the late 1960's as Prime Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party. Instead of dealing with that history reactionaries such as Sam resort to slandering Newtons's memory and acting as if Newton's politics were not significant.

It was the community programs and the work the Panthers did to build international solidarity among colonized peoples throughout the world is what is important about Huey P. Newton. It was the Free Breakfast for Children Program, the Sickle Cell Anemia program , the Panther school and all the rest that they put together to serve the interests of the African working class. All that and the fact that Huey showed the people what to do when confronted by a thug posing as a policeman in the case of now deceased Officer John Frey. It is that history that is what makes makes the State tremble and trolls such as Sam resort to such pathetic attempts at slandering Huey P. Newton's legacy.

Sincerely,

John Parker

i did some research on the tampa bay. its probably the wingnut capital of the u.s. the uhuru nuts doing silly shit like running for public office in st. petersburg, the scientologist with their sea org in clearwater and plenty o' cracker rednecks everywhere else. why the fuck would anyone want to live there?

i would like the uhuru group a lot more if doormats like john and matthew moved there and this bay area indymedia list was more anti-authoritarian.

lrh

Too the Reactionaries-

God you people are pathetic. No one on this thread opposed to the Uhuru Movement can offer up nothing other than slander and fanciful notions of what they THINK the organization is about.
Do any of you have the slightest intellectual capacity to comprehend muchless respond to an argument? From the discourse coming from the anti-Uhuru faction it is clear that y'all are lacking in this ability.

Irh how in the hell do you connect the scientoligists to the Uhuru Movement due to being in the same vicinity? That is the most idiotic reasoning I have encountered in quite a while. Is that why you insist upon remaining anonymous or do you simply not know how to spell your real name. Whichever is the case it is clear that you need some serious help. That goes for diamat and john brown as well. Personally I am inclined to believe that they are the same person writing under different handles. It is hard to believe a person can be this STUPID muchless three. However may god help us all if that is the case.

Sincerely,

John Parker

Johnnie whiner

you preach more than I fucking do. who says you are arguing? sounds more like telling people what their sins should compel them to do. that aint a debate.

and i say this from ominiscient knowledge: the tampa bay is wingnut sin city. while the sf bay is full of nuts, fruits and flakes, especially cults like yours, but tampa bay takes the (fruit)cake. you nuts are simply a different variation of the same theme as the scientologists, crakers and bucaneer fans.

'nuf said

YOUR LORD

ps dont ever use my name in vain again or i'm gonna make your nasty food merchandise taste even worse.

Groups like Uhuru Movement and other ideologically-driven politic groups, such as International Answer, remind me a lot like MENSA, the international high-IQ society. Not based on results but on passing a simple test for memebership and then repeating the motions in a feel good manner. Sure, people in MENSA have high IQs, but that does not make them smart, nor does it say anything about how they put the claimed smarts to use.

The Uhuru Movement seems to require that you buy into the party line of a black (or ‘African peoples’ in their jargon) and white (often swiftly linked with supremacist) world (where did all those other ethnicities and cultures go? Boiled down in some cosmic melting pot into just black in white?), and the rest will take care of itself. But, in real life, paying the membership dues does not net results, much less positive results beyond the self-interest of the group.

Sure, lots of groups like to talk socialism, but they are not in a position of influence or skill to find that their ideas are largely untenable in a world that is not re-molded like clay. Lucky for them, finding failure in their actions can be blamed on some scapegoat laid out in their ideology. (And blaming others looks like a specialty of these groups, the Uhuru Movement case in point.) But, failure in their ideology and the whole plot is lost and things get confused and ugly quick.

i am sorry if you failed the mensa entrance exam. however bitterly taking it out on every group that has an ideology and organization, will not help your self-esteem. since you hate answer, uhuru and mensa, perhaps you can offer an organization and/or an ideology that you suggest our readers subscribe to. if you can't, and all you are about is attacking others, this makes you a pathetic apologist for the status qou, at best.

or perhaps you are just against organization and ideology all together. if this is the case, you have a lot in common with my pet cat, fatboy. fatboy couldn't pass the mensa entrance exam either.

Doormatt, you and your fellow self-flagellators are the most dogmatic, humorless bunch on God's great earth.

An organization and ironclad ideology don't a revolution make. You end up being a bureaucratic church. You heretical heathens will burn in HELL for defiling ME in words and deeds.

YOUR SAVIOR

sweet jesus, kevin keating, do you believe you're a deity now? you really should talk to a doctor about increasing your meds!

"i am sorry if you failed the mensa entrance exam.
however bitterly taking it out on every group that
has an ideology and organization, will not help your
self-esteem. since you hate answer, uhuru and mensa, "

For the record: I have never applied to MENSA or taken a MENSA test of any kind, much less had to opportunity to fail such an exam. This has resulted in no bitterness towards any group or person; my self-esteem is high and not a problem in my life. And, when confronted with those critiquing my ideas, I feel no need to turn to personal attacks or innuendo.


"perhaps you can offer an organization and/or an ideology
that you suggest our readers subscribe to. if you can't,
and all you are about is attacking others, this makes you
a pathetic apologist for the status qou, at best. or perhaps
you are just against organization and ideology all together."

Just because your group, and others like it, is prime for critique does not make me an apologist for whatever status quo you choose inveigh against and label others as. A primary function in progressive thinking is recognizing diversity in not only our communities, but in ideas that flow within them--not to mention the complexity of the problems faced. To do otherwise and enforce a rigid orthodoxy, as many so-called progressive groups do, is regressive and isolationist. This can do little to work towards a groups goals, both short and long term.

I propose no textbook ideology to follow; there is no website, video or pamphlet that lays out a structure on how to think about any particular, much less all, problems we face. There are no simple solutions and I realize that many problems will always be problems to varying degrees. I suggest that a key element in addressing any problem is clear thinking and keen observation. Without that, ideology can only serve to cloud the problem in one’s personal perception and ideology. Moreover, working together (with differing groups with common cause, and some that have none) to meet short term goals is far more critical than holding out for an ultimate, all-encompassing solution to any group’s long term goals. From reading the comments here, the Uhuru Movement speaks to the latter and offers little evidence to the former. To be sure, some might see this as an attack, while some read it as a suggestion for future efforts.

DoorMattHew,

Keating is gonna burn in hell with you. He's some kind of a heathen athiest, as I imagine you are.

As they say: *birds of a feather burn together*

You and Keating are gonna have a great time fighting it out in purgatory to decide whose dogma is gospel. Both of you creeps are heretics.

YOUR LORD AND SAVIOUR

"For the record: I have never applied to MENSA or taken a MENSA test of any kind, much less had to opportunity to fail such an exam. This has resulted in no bitterness towards any group or person; my self-esteem is high and not a problem in my life. And, when confronted with those critiquing my ideas, I feel no need to turn to personal attacks or innuendo."

chris, in this thread you've attacked me and my group as "ideological freaks" for having ideas contentious with your own. further you attack the uhuru movment for being "separatist" over and over without providing any evidence for this charge or responding to repeated requests for such evidence. you have no moral ground regarding personal and subjective attacks in this discussion.

"Just because your group, and others like it, is prime for critique does not make me an apologist for whatever status quo you choose inveigh against and label others as. A primary function in progressive thinking is recognizing diversity in not only our communities, but in ideas that flow within them--not to mention the complexity of the problems faced. To do otherwise and enforce a rigid orthodoxy, as many so-called progressive groups do, is regressive and isolationist. This can do little to work towards a groups goals, both short and long term."

i see. you love diversity of ideas, and are opposed to isolationism, but you're on a thread where the uhuru movement is inviting the white community to join the african in fighting the war against the african community. rather than unite with this unifying call, your mission here is to isolote the uhuru movement. ironically, you justify your mission by claiming we have ideas that are invalid with the same mouth that would offer a vision of a left movement with "diversity of ideas". this is a text book example of ideological imperialism. you are defending a status qou, where, in the same city africans catch hell every day, while in the white community liberals hang out in bookstores and coffee shops, qouting marx and going "tsk, tsk."

"I propose no textbook ideology to follow; there is no website, video or pamphlet that lays out a structure on how to think about any particular, much less all, problems we face."

no you certainly do not. you sound like the kind of person who expresses their political life over lattes in coffee shops in berkeley as described above. this is how apologists for the status quo maintain a balance between their ideological contradictions with the capitalist system and their material interests in keeping everything just the way it is.

"There are no simple solutions and I realize that many problems will always be problems to varying degrees. I suggest that a key element in addressing any problem is clear thinking and keen observation. Without that, ideology can only serve to cloud the problem in one’s personal perception and ideology. Moreover, working together (with differing groups with common cause, and some that have none) to meet short term goals is far more critical than holding out for an ultimate, all-encompassing solution to any group’s long term goals. From reading the comments here, the Uhuru Movement speaks to the latter and offers little evidence to the former. To be sure, some might see this as an attack, while some read it as a suggestion for future efforts."

i would again, like for you to point out evidence of this allegation. it is you on this thread, attempting to make a case to keep uhuru isolated. now you're preaching about people and groups with different views working together. in this thread someone asked if uhuru works with pueblo. we said we are willing to and have in the past, in spite of some differences with them, but they are unwilling to work with us. i provided evidence of this behavor on pueblo's part. but you chris, instead of critiquing pueblo for this unproductive and unprincipled sectarianism, attacked us for this contradiction. pueblo is understandbly unwilling to work with "ideological freaks" according to you. so you resort to name calling to again, and justifty one group refusing to work with another, based on ideological differences between them. again, you uphold the status quo.

if there is a suggestion for future efforts in your writing, please name them specifically. the uhuru movement stands willing to do actual work with the many varied interests in the bay area, where our objectives correspond. we are not interested in philosophical conversations that lead nowhere but a continuation of the status quo.

Uhuru engages in gay repression and verbal intimidation. there have been numerous incidents
reported on indy-meaid alone. how can you claim to be pro-rights when you behave in this manner.
you have also been very mean to transgender persons at your meetings.

The scriptures prove that SO-CALLED Matthew--commonly known as *the Doormatt*--is a heretic and is worshipping false idols, ie. his false prophet Omali Yeshitela. Equally blasphemous is his pandering to white yuppies. He wants them to buy funiture and soul food. He wants them to join the party and to give all their money to the party. And then he wants them to sell furniture and food.

Matthew's anti-christ Keating, according to the latter's website, wants yuppies too. But he wants to vandalize their cars. But, like Matthew, he NEEDS white middle-class yuppies to serve as the demons that is the focus of ALL his political activity. Matthew and Keating are just different sides of the same coin. Which, with my divine insight, I call *worshipping the demon that is the mirror image of their own selves*. Without the satanic image of theirsevles projected onto the OTHER, neither of these dogmatists would have anything to say. Mattew and Keating are both self-hating middle-class whites who ignore the biblical imperative to *turn the other check*.

To prove this, I quote the scriptures, Matthew 5:20--

*For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.*

All readers on this thread who don't adopt Christ consciousness and stop worshipping false idols who like bad Pharisees, preach self-hatred, they will never accept ME into their hearts as their saviour and will never be able to love themselves and realize the promise of everlasting life in the kindom of heaven.

EMBRACE ME, YOUR SAVIOUR
or you will burn forever for being the sinners that you are

Huey P. Newton
the godfather of getto violance, drive-by shootings, innercity drug dealing. extortion of the black community,
murder for hire. "known prostitute"

we have so much to remember about "Huey"

having interaced many times with the membership of Uhuru house, I can attest that they are definately into gay bashing. the resentment of the membership twards any openly gay male is very apparent.

Behold, heathen Matthew, that if you--in your usual kneejerk fashion--refer to beatific St. Paul as either a *cointelpro agent* or your blasphemous evil twin Keating, I will stike down your guilt-gloating sinner white arse with a lightening bolt.

I will do it personally. You have been warned, you misguided, idolator--worshipper of earth-bound false prophets.

Repent, on your knees, (or on your) DoorMatt. Otherwise it's eternal damnation. I hope you're ready for a never-ending inferno as punishment.

YOUR LORD FROM ON HIGH

Ronald W. Reagan.
the godfather of getto violance, drive-by shootings, innercity drug dealing. extortion of the black community,
murder for hire. "known prostitute." don't forget his little bitches, george bush and george bush jr.

we have so much to remember about "Ronnie." too bad he can't remember his own name!"

Paul-

Since you have "interaced" with so many Uhuru House members why is it that I can not recall who you are. I have been involved and around the Uhuru Movement on and off for 10 years and have no recollection of you or any incidents you refer to in your post. Could you please cite a specific example for the readers of this thread? That is only fair. Otherwise we can only presume that you are lying.

- John Parker

P.S- Jesus H. Christ you are a pathetic coward. Here you are threatening to strike people down. Gee I thought Jesus was supposed to be loving and forgiving and all that. Thanks for reminding me why I chose to lose my religion. Anyway you are small minded twit who can only resort to name-calling and making threats while remaining anonymous. Go troll on another thread.

John Parker, pathetic little worshipper of a church, uhuru house, that offers guilt without my opportunity for transcendence, will suffer DoorMatt's fate too if you don't get down on your knees and beg me for forgiveness for your blaspheming me, your lord and only saviour.

Repent, admit you've worshipped false idols--by which I mean the furniture shop, bean pies and Omalia. Only then, by renouncing your sins, can you have everlasting life in the realm of heaven.

Worship only me, or suffer the consequences.

Your ONLY Lord,

Jesus H. Christ

>>Since you have "interraced" with so many Uhuru House members>>

Hey John, what is "interraced"? A violation of your party line against miscegenation?

Anyway, since so many people have experienced homophobia or been gay bashed by your group, why are you so much in "denial" about this? Remember what the 12 steppers say: "the first step is admitting the problem". It would really help your group in overcoming your internal oppressions--in this case about gender preference--by coming clean about them.

You seem to take some kind of proprietary ownership over this threat, but why doesn't anyone but Uhuru hacks post anything positive or supportive about your group? THE ANSWER IS: because, like a cult, people must submit to the authority of your group, or they are enemies. Simple as that. Creeps like John Parker and DoorMatt are instructed by their handlers to "intervene" in other forums to troll for recruits. Notice how they never really discuss or debate the issues? It's always: "come down to our furniture shop to find out about what we're doing" without really revealing how truly looney their politics are. And Indymedia has a democratic, anti-authoritarian agenda where debating ideas is facilitated--which is almost diametrically opposed to the cult organizational style of Uhuru--or any other cult for that matter.

So, Uhuru is basically trolling for recruits here, not unlike Trots or the RCP do at demos.

To them, we've got to say: "spew your vile, guilt-mongering racialist shit" and then we'll have to tell you to get off the pot and get the fuck off OUR Indymedia site and STOP YOUR FUCKING TROLLING FOR RECRUITS. The world would be a much, much more beautiful place with fewer Uhuru zombies trying to drag honest, sincere people into their cult.

Sam

Sam-

Idiot boy. Had you bothered to READ the thread you would see that I was mocking Paul's wording in his post. It was he who wrote "interaced". Obviously he was attempting to write "interacted" or "interfaced" like his bud and fearless leader George Dubya would. So before you run and attack someone you ought to check the details you insiduous, moronic imbecile.

Sincerely,

John Parker

P.S- I fear you not Jesus H. Christ. You are a pathetic roving troll that can not even show yourself to the light of day. So keep your disgusting thoughts to yourself and remain in your dank, smelly cave troll boy.

dear sam, as we've repeatedly stated, we are perfectly willing to work with people who don't agree with us on every issue. it is you who are attacking us, slandering us, and attempting to isolate us for not falling into line with your dogma, not the other way around. you wish we would go away, because our presence challenges your narrow woldview. by golly sam, by your own definition, you represent a cult!

there are plenty of uhuru supporters who read these forums. they come to our events and thank us for posting here. why don't they join the fray? i'd guess they probably don't want to get involved with the level of ugliness and bile that the likes of you spew out, and i can't say that i blame them.

the reason john and i invite people to events and places is because the uhuru is actually about organizing. we are actual people with identities. we don't just anonymously attack others for organizing the best that you, and the rest of our opponents can do.

anyway good luck with your cult, sam. i wish you the best defending its members from having an open mind to ideas which challenge it. sorry to inform you, but by the stated mission of its founders, indymedia is not the sole property of your cult, and we are going to continue to participate here.

uhuru! matthew

ps: "interaced" is the word your friend paul used to slander the uhuru movement. john was quoting him. try reading more carefully.

"Notice how they never really discuss or debate the issues?"

What issues would you like them to discuss or debate, Sam? Perhaps you could list them for us.

"interaced"

is it and insider word?

BW

1)Reparations, without ad hominem dismisals of others' opinions.

2) The BPP, pros--which I'm sure most of us agree on--and cons, without fudging the truth and glorifying the history with unpricipled mystification.

3)Nationalism and how it's just another oppression like racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

4)The real world of Oakland, without the kind of self-congradulatory grandstanding that self appointed leaders of the people like Bey's group and Uhuru do all the time.

5)Nutrition, here we are headed into stormy water as all the junk food peddlers on this thread are obviously going to resort to cultural relativism to defend their selling crap food to the peeps.

...from the church of uhuru, John Parker.

My father, who art in heaven, gave you the worst sense of humor on this planet earth--and almost as bad a sense of spelling.

Repent to the TRUE LORD and you might--it's a 50-50% thing--be saved. At the very least you might learn to laugh at your heretically absurd self and HE might give you a dictionary.

CHRIST IN HEAVEN

thanks for posting your issues, sam. this gets to our political differences, and is more productive than the slander uhuru/defend uhuru tone of this thread thusfar. that was indeed refreshing to read. i will address your issues, one by one:

"1)Reparations, without ad hominem dismisals of others' opinions."

we support reparations. we believe principled white people should recognize that our collective social weatlh comes at the expense of a 500 year old colonial relationship to african and other oppressed people. we are happy to debate this issue. we hope those who would like to debate us on this issue would do so in a principled manner, and not resort to slander and name calling to avoid a productive discussion.

"2) The BPP, pros--which I'm sure most of us agree on--and cons, without fudging the truth and glorifying the history with unpricipled mystification."

We uphold the BPP. The BPP was militarily defeated by the U.S. government by assassinating and jailing its leaders, assassinating and jailing its rank-and-file, and saturating the african community, which gave birth to the black panthers, with heroin and later crack cocaine. the black panther party suffered this brutal repression without defnese from the white community, which stood on the sidelines complicit; including the left and radical sectors of the white community. the white left, rather than face our complicity in the u.s. gov't war on the BPP would rather focus on, for example, huey newton's struggles with substance abuse in the latter part of his life, as huey drug addiction explains why the panthers were unable to complete the black revolution of the '60s.

"3)Nationalism and how it's just another oppression like racism, sexism, homophobia, etc."

oppressed people have a right to a nationality and to land, and have a right to defend their nationality and land. we sit on land stolen from indigenous people. their resistance to that theft is rooted in nationalism. characterizing national liberation struggles as "just another oppression" is a tactic used by ideological imperialists in the white left attack colonized peoples' right to self determination. you see, white people benefit from the fact that indians lost their nation. so if the indians threaten to offer any challenge to our ability to control their nation, we attack them for natinionalism with the same vigor that we'd attack the u.s. state for attempting to prevent white people of the same gender from having sex with each other. in the uhuru movement, we uphold african internationalism, which is the belief that african is the homeland for african people all around the world.

"4)The real world of Oakland, without the kind of self-congradulatory grandstanding that self appointed leaders of the people like Bey's group and Uhuru do all the time. "

it sounds like you're trying to make a point, but its lost on me. in any case, i don't entertain, racists attempts to paint the NOI and the uhuru movement with the same brush just because we are both groups focused on the african community. any black group is as same as any other, to many of the ideological imperialist lefty racists on this site. that's why this thread, which has nothing to do with the NOI is peppered with comments on yusef bey's recent death.

"5)Nutrition, here we are headed into stormy water as all the junk food peddlers on this thread are obviously going to resort to cultural relativism to defend their selling crap food to the peeps."

i think this question on nutrition is a thinly-veiled attempt to attack our concessins booths and holiday pie campaign, so i'll speak to that. the uhuru movement manages concessions booths at street fairs and demos and sells holiday pies during the holiday season. we've been doing these successfully for decades, staffed 100% by volunteers. ideological imperialists in the white left are offended by the concept of white people raising funds for a black movement as a form of reparations. however all of our food is delicious and much of it quite nutritious, or we wouldn't be so succesful. if you don't eat pie, more power to you. however if you enjoy a slice of pie after a nice meal on the holiday with your family, i suggest the uhuru apple-cranberry pie, made with organic fugi apples and delicious tangy cranberries. topped with a wonderful granola crust. if you're hungry at after the next big answer demo, you can stop by our booth and get an eggless-saled pita sandwich, a tuna sandwitch, a falafel and hummus sandwich, or a lousiana style 100% beef sausage. we encourage donations and appreciate your support for the uhuru movement! how healthy is your diet, sam? i trust you are a vegan who only eats organic foods? if not, please stop attacking us for having food fundraisers... as your boy jesus h. christ would say, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

love, matthew

In response to the issues raised, I found a link to an excellent site and its journal called "Race Traitor". I like it because it put the responsibilty of white people organizing against racism on white people themselves. Here's their statement . Below that is the link to their website:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The white race is a historically constructed social formation. It consists of all those who partake of the privileges of the white skin in this society. Its most wretched members share a status higher, in certain respects, than that of the most exalted persons excluded from it, in return for which they give their support to a system that degrades them.

The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race, which means no more and no less than abolishing the privileges of the white skin. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue, domestic and foreign, in U.S. society.

The existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a predictor of behavior will lead to its collapse.

Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.

http://www.postfun.com/racetraitor/welcome.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I think their approach offers a completely constructive and healthy method to overthrowing racism.

Kenny

I'd like to remind everyone to PLEASE refrain from feeding the trolls. I know its tempting, watching all the neat tricks they pull, begging for attention, but it's for their own good.

This means do not respond to the boring and creepy troll, "Jesus H. Christ." Once he's successfully ignored, he'll go back to sleep.

Thank you,
ZK

there was a punk band in chicago in the mid '90s called "race traitor" that was made up of white uhuru movement members. i wonder if they have any affiliation with this site...

check this out, fellow thread heads: new from the uhuru movementi in st. pete florida.

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/10/10/Southpinellas/Uhurus_plan_weekly_Ba.shtml

struggling for the rights of black people to enjoy a public space, and intervening when the police attack a black man. aren't we such a terrible cult? its no wonder the white left here on indymedia hates us so much!

damn matthew, a dozen activists or should i say wingnuts holding up sign with such hard hitting slogans. just like the revolution of 1905 when the russian masses took the winter palace. or the october revolution in 1917 when the bolsheviks toppled the karensky govenment.

should we all arm ourselves and march out of the funiture shop to all the seats of power? we are awaiting your orders, comrade doormat.

and before you call me a cointelpro agent, i offer the proposition that i'm 1000 times more radical than you and your petty little immature debating partners like keating, jesus, sam, chris, paul and ringo.

comrade vladimar

dear readers: its nice that "vladamir" is here posting and keeping the thread going. i am disappointed in sam l. who attacked the uhuru movement for not being willing to discuss the "issues," as defined by him, and refuses to do so himself. as this thread has demonstrated, unfortuntately, the uhuru movement is attacked for "refusing to discuss the issues" by those who refuse to discuss the issues, for being a "cult" by those that act like they are in a cult, and for being "homophobic" by those who are clearly afrophobic. but i suppose it would be oxymoronic to expect ideological imperalism to be anything less than dishonest and hypocritical. that's its nature.

"vladamir" is a new anonymous handle entering the discussion. he posts in solidarity with the white power state against a group of activists standing against the unspoken jim crow laws affecting a recently-built, posh shopping area in deep-south, st. petersburg florida. he requests that before i call him on his cointelpro-like behavior, i receive his proposition that he's "1000 times more radical than me" and the other contributors to this thread, "like keating, jesus, sam, chris, paul and ringo."

so what do others think? is he an cointelpro agent, and if not, why is he acting like one? is he "1000 times more radical" than the rest of the thread, and if so is that a good thing? and finally, is he a new contributor to this thread as he claims, and if so, where did the rest of the anti-uhuru commentators like like "keating, jesus, sam, chris, paul and ringo" disappear to?

These uhuru people are nuts!
I'm not the least bit "afrophobic", nor prejudiced. You might think so because I don't feel guilt for slavery, and don't in the least support reparations. My grandparents are all immigrants. Legal ones, I might add, LOL!
I am in the group of people of all national origins and skin colors that happen to believe that blacks are perfectly capable of sustaining themselves just like everyone else. The only ones who don't think so are the ones who haven't had to sustain themselves, and are quite comfortable being catered to.
Wherever did you get the idea that they wanted or needed your help? I know a number of black individuals that consider the subject of reparations an insult.
I'd say if you can sell this idea, then I might have a sales position for you. I could use that kind of talent.

Because that's what I'm bogged down with at the moment. I have to do a presentation for my job and it's so fucking nuts doing it on an shitty old computer.

As SS Arnold says in his dad's Nazi accent:

I'll be back!

And then I'll say my piece. Until then, Allah help me with this. Hey anyone else know of any genies in bottles or have any tricks that might help? Jesus, can you divinely intervene? But you're the fucking conintelpro agent who's going to monkeywrench me, fuck that.

Sam L

matthew skirts the issues as much as possible to avoid the truth of the GAY BASHING OF UHURU. at every opportunity Uhuru has shown its self to be oppressive and divisive to the gay community!
you bring shame to your parents and your community

little known fact;
matthew is represented as andy-dick a cowering chris rock wantta-be in the game gettopoly

sure sam, go on with your powerpoint. respond if and when you feel like it.

however, until you do, the fact that i responded with uhuru's position on the "issues" that you defined, coupled with your lack of a response, provides further demonstration that your contributions to this thread thusfar amount to nothing more than mean-spirited, divisive, chauvenistic slander against a forthright, hard working organization that struggles against the u.s. gov't war on the african community. in keeping with ideological imperialism, you attack us and attempt to keep us isolated because we refuse to fall in line into your narrow, rigid politic spectrum. then you project your ruthless unprincipled sectarianism onto us.

sam claims he will "be back." however, now that objective political differences are on the table and have to be worked through, instead, sam may well let this thread die down. then, the next time the uhuru movement dare post on "his" indymedia site offering an opportunity for white activists to show solidarity with the african community's fight for self determination, we'll get a renewed attack by sam (probably with a new anonymous identity) with the same tired drivel: "uhuru refuses to discuss the issues!" "uhuru is a cult!" "uhuru is anti-gay!" "uhuru is responsible for alex vitale getting punched 12 years ago!" etc., etc., ad naseum.

you see, that's how ideological imperialism, on indymedia and elsewhere, works:
1. post anonymously. always post anonymously. preferably with a new handle.
2. refuse to address the issues. instead raise slanderous, unsubstantiated attacks.
3. use any responses in defense to slanderous attacks as evidence that the uhuru movement "ducks the issues."
4. go to step one.

thanks to the organizers of indymedia for allowing this discussion to occur.

uhuru means freedom! matthew

if only I could be..................................

What I wrote in the last paragraph of the above post should read:

you see, that's how ideological imperialism, in Uhuru and elsewhere, works:
1. post as ‘matthew.’ always post as ‘matthew.’ preferably multiple times.
2. refuse to address the issues. instead raise slanderous, unsubstantiated attacks.
3. use any responses asa defense to perceived slanderous attacks as chance for the uhuru movement "duck the issues."
4. go to step one.