>From: "L.A. Kauffman" <lak@free-radical.org> >Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 10:15:34 -0800 >Subject: [freeradical] BLACK COMEBACK > >======================================================== >FREE RADICAL: chronicle of the new unrest > by L.A. KAUFFMAN > > www.free-radical.org >-------------------------------------------------------- >[to subscribe, write freeradical-request@lists.riseup.net with the word >subscribe in the email subject or body] >-------------------------------------------------------- > >BLACK COMEBACK: >An interview with KAI LUMUMBA BARROW . . . . .Issue #11 > > >What if there was a revolution and nobody noticed? > >OK, "revolution" is too grand a term, but the event in question is >undeniably historic: the creation, in the United States, of a >direct-action-based alliance across racial lines, between the predominantly >white movement against corporate globalization and the predominantly people >of color movement against criminal injustice. > >You won't read about it in the mainstream media, but then, they didn't see >Seattle coming either. More troubling is how little discussion there seems >to be in radical and progressive circles about this nascent alliance: its >necessity, potential, and pitfalls. > >Kai Lumumba Barrow has been a major figure behind the recent resurgence of >direct action within movements of color. She works fulltime as an organizer >for SLAM!, the Student Liberation Action Movement, based in the City >University of New York, especially Manhattan's Hunter College. Since the >mid-Nineties, SLAM! has been a pioneering activist force on the East Coast, >mobilizing working-class students of color in a series of savvy and daring >campaigns for educational access, economic justice, and other issues. > >This past summer, SLAM! brought the largely white New York City Direct >Action Network (NYC-DAN) and other groups together to plan a joint action >against the Republican Party Convention in Phildadelphia, focused on >questions of criminal injustice. The process was a bumpy one -- in >particular, there was resistance within NYC-DAN to what some felt was a turn >away from the group's focus on corporate globalization, resistance that many >activists of color viewed as racist -- but the coalition held, and holds to >this day. > >In this frank and wide-ranging interview, Kai Lumumba Barrow places this >development within a broad historical context, focusing particularly on the >troubled state of the black liberation movement over the last 25 years and >its current revitalization. She sheds light both on why African-American >radicals moved away from direct-action protest beginning in the mid 1960s, >and why she and other activists of color are experimenting with it anew >today. > > ----------------- > >Kai Lumumba Barrow: I was raised by a black nationalist family, so I came to >activist struggles early. It's difficult for me to say when I was >politicized, because it seems like it's always been there. But I guess >probably '68, the Democratic Convention, stands out for me. > >I was born and raised in Chicago. My parents were involved in various >organizations and we lived in a co-op building where a lot of Panthers and >Yippies and so forth came and stayed during the Convention. I was about 10, >and I remember feeling close to some of the folks who were staying in our >house before the Convention began. You know, you're a kid, and you're the >homeowner's kid, so you get a special kind of attention. People were nice to >me, and I felt they were my friends. > >So when Daley turned his pigs on the people, and the people came back to the >house, bleeding and beat up, I felt personally hurt. I felt like, they did >this to my friends. > >After that I read Malcolm X, and I wanted a revolution. That's it, I >thought, we're going to do this. In high school, I was a knucklehead: >conscious, but not active. But I went to college thinking, this is where the >revolution is going to happen. I went to a historically black university in >Atlanta, and I was really taken aback: It was the Carter years, and Reagan >was beginning to show his ugly head, and there was no movement. > >COINTELPRO had done a serious job on the Panther Party and then also the >Black Liberation Army. There was underground stuff happening but it was way, >way submerged. There wasn't any real movement specifically in black >communities any more. And I was on this campus with the bourgeoisie, the >black bourgeoisie, and I was really freaked out. Like, what is going on? >(laughter) > >But then I got active around anti-apartheid work, building student >organizations on campus, and doing a lot of work at that time around Assata >Shakur and Joanne Little and other political prisoners. > >I also became a member of the Republic of New Africa, whose full name was >the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Africa. It focused on >establishing a nation for black people in five states in the South. Doing a >lot of institution-building, in that sense. We started a school, a Saturday >school, did a lot of political prisoner work, and a lot of political >education work. Training and that sort of thing. > >I stayed with that in different capacities for several years. I went back to >Chicago and started doing a lot of police brutality work there, still doing >prisoner support work, and ended up here in New York in the early 90s, still >staying with the same issues, around police brutality and prison work. > >LAK: In the U.S., the tactics and techniques of direct action were really >pioneered by the black freedom movement of the Fifties and Sixties, but by >the early Seventies, those tactics are rarely seen in movements of color, >especially in black movements. How did that come to be? > >KLB: There was a major shift in the political expression of the black >liberation movement in the mid-Sixties. I have recollections of looking at >the civil rights movement, Dr. King, and the dogs and that sort of thing, >and I have recollections of my family saying, Why are they allowing >themselves to be beaten and attacked by these pigs, by these racist pigs? >Why are they not fighting back? > >So there were two predominant tendencies regarding which way forward for our >people. It's reductionist to say it, but it was primarily Malcolm X versus >Dr. King, and you choose your camp. And I tended to be in the Malcolm X >camp - still do, frankly. > >The Black Panther Party, as the heirs of Malcolm X, said we're not going to >just stand by idly, we're going to utilize self-defense in order to get our >movement forward. And at that time the Party did engage in a lot of direct >action, from taking over the state capitol in California - that was a direct >action - to various activities that were going on in communities around the >country. > >Now, though, the black liberation movement is at a really crucial stage in >its development. We've seen a lot of our leadership and a lot of our >comrades killed and imprisoned and driven crazy, exiled, because we stood up >against oppression. And at this point there seems to be a reassessing of >which way we should we go. We've engaged in a critique around the standard >leadership model, the hierarchical leadership model; we've done a critique >around the party model; we've done a critique around every possible model >that we know exists, and at this point we're in the process of re-building. > >So as a people, within different movements, we've been stunned to some >degree for a really long time. Since the early to mid Seventies. I think the >experiment with armed struggle models, underground models, hit us really >hard. The Party as a large movement kind of stopped at that point. There >have been smatterings of different things that have occurred since then, but >I don't think we've really been able to capture the imagination of our >communities in any broad way since that period. > >So we've been kind of in this stalemate, and I think what's happening is >that we're starting to look back to, well, the Fifties. (laughter) This >dawned on me maybe about a year or so ago, and I was really pissed. I was >like, damn it, we're going backwards. (laughter) > >So we're starting to reassess the utilization of direct action and civil >disobedience, but we're coming at it, I think, more militantly than in the >Fifties. We've seen it as a way to engage more of our community. Primarily >what we've been doing since the Seventies is rallies and permitted protests >and those sort of things, that have been more or less non-confrontational. I >think we're starting to say, wait a minute. We've been using a multitude of >non-confrontational tactics, and I think at this point some of us are >starting to escalate some of the tactics that we're utilizing, understanding >that we're also the most victimized by the state for participating in those >tactics. > >We took the position in the past that nonviolent civil disobedience placed >us in a very passive position, so we started engaging in armed struggle or >at least self-defense. We didn't have enough experience with that perhaps, >or we didn't have enough support for that, and we were beat. We were beat >pretty badly. > >We're trying to come back from that, get it together and figure out how >we're going to move forward. Taking the best of both self-defense and >militancy while still being accountable to our communities. > >LAK: What were your feelings about Seattle when it happened? > >KLB: Why the hell am I in New York at a SLAM! meeting? I had planned to go - >I was so mad! > >For all the obvious reasons, I thought it was great. I was really >disappointed by the coverage - I don't know if there were more people of >color in Seattle than the none I saw in the media. > >The morning after, my partner and I were on the train, reading the paper. >And we were smiling and high fiving each other. I lived at the time in Bed >Stuy, so the train was filled with black folks - and everybody was >smiling.(laughter) I had some good conversations with a couple of folks on >the train, about how this is necessary, and it's about time, and this >reminds me of the old days. People were overwhelmingly supportive. Nobody >said, "Oh, they shouldn't have thrown the rock at the Starbucks." (laughter) > >But, in terms of their weaknesses, Seattle, D.C. - even Philly and L.A. - >these mass convergences require a week's worth of time in order to >participate, dollars in order to travel, support. If a whole group of people >go somewhere for a week, there's a whole lot of work that's not getting >done, and who's going to do it? Whether that's taking care of the children, >or working 9 to 5. It's very difficult for people of color, even young >people of color, young working-class people of color, to participate in mass >convergences. > >I thought Seattle was a great experiment, and it was great that labor came >out. But there was clearly a class distinction between the people who >organized and participated in Seattle versus where I come from. Access to >cell phones? Please, we're just getting walkie-talkies. The utilization of >technology, organizing on the Internet: What's that phrase, the digital >divide? It's there. Make no mistake about it, it's there. > >So the organizing and the building for that action clearly indicated that an >intelligentsia, a bourgeois class, had organized it. They had the equipment, >they had the contacts. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's really >important to acknowledge that. > >So to some degree, I thought it was great to see it, and I felt really >heartened that people were in the streets. I also felt disconnected, and I >felt envious - player hate. (laughter) I felt like, you know, why don't we >have the resources to do this kind of work? > >If we look at the Vietnam War protests, we see how those protests - because >of a capacity to utilize the system, and money, and resources - tended to >overtake and coopt the black liberation movement, the American Indian >Movement, the Chicano movement and the Puerto Rican movement. I'm worried >that this network of people doing >direct action around corporate globalism is going to do the same thing to >emerging movements around criminal injustice. These are issues where people >of color are saying no, this is genocide, and we're building a movement. I >worry about globalization issues knocking that out of the box. > >That's why I think the predominantly white anti-globalization movement has >got to engage in a domestic anaylsis of corporate globalization and what >effect it has on disenfranchised communities of color. The movement against >corporate globalization has to engage in an ongoing analysis about race and >imperialism, and how they play out in the United States, or else it will >completely undermine our work and continue to propel a racist and classist >system. > >That's why I wanted to really look at how we could unite with the Direct >Action Network, or build a parallel alliance or network of people of color >that were focused on issues that affect people of color, and unite the two >major issues - corporate globalization and criminal injustice - as a place >that we can spring from. > >************ >FREE RADICAL is an e-column on the current upsurge in activism, written by >L.A. Kauffman (lak@free-radical.org). It aspires to weekly publication but >in practice appears irregularly. > >This issue is archived at http://www.free-radical.org/issue11.shtml > >************ >ABOUT THE AUTHOR >L.A. Kauffman (lak@free-radical.org) is perhaps the first person in U.S. >history to be arrested for allegedly committing a crime by fax machine. (The >Manhattan D.A. declined to prosecute.) She is currently writing DIRECT >ACTION: RADICALISM IN OUR TIME, a history of U.S. activism since 1970. A >longtime radical journalist and organizer, she is active in a number of New >York City direct action campaigns. Her work has appeared in the Village >Voice, The Nation, The Progressive, Spin, Mother Jones, Salon.com, and >numerous other publications. > >************* >TO SUBSCRIBE, write freeradical-request@lists.riseup.net with the word >subscribe in the subject or body of the email > >TO UNSUBSCRIBE, go to the page: >http://lists.riseup.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freeradical > >Back issues of FREE RADICAL are on the web at http://www.free-radical.org > >All contents Copyright 2000 by L.A. Kauffman >FREE RADICAL is syndicated by Alternet (http://www.alternet.org) > >For information about reprinting FREE RADICAL, write to >info@free-radical.org
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