Many black people in the United States working in liberation movements have difficulty distinguishing genuine friends from genuine enemies. On one hand, they will reject and denounce approaches that have developed in other countries that take class as the key link in organizing for revolution and liberation. They reject the Soviet, Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Nepalese, Peruvian, and countless other revolutionary experiments because we ain’t none of those people. Many of us see Communism, Maoism, Marxism, etc. as “foreign things”, and echo ruling class narratives about them being “dictators”, “authoritarian”, “fascists”, and God knows what else. This is silly. If Mao had been like this, the Chinese would still be governed by the fascist Nationalist Party and there could have been no victory in 1949. We should learn from whoever has told the pig, the imperialist, the enemy, and the traitor to go fuck themselves. You’ve got time for postmodern bullshit that has never done anything for anybody, you’ve got time for Gonzalo, Joma, and Azad. You’ve got time to watch Empire, you’ve got time to watch Red Ant Dream. Meanwhile, we’ll hug up with and fight like hell for DeRay, Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and those who have proven themselves to not have the interests of the poorest and most oppressed of our people at heart. We swallow their lines and let them lead us down blind alleys because they’re black. Our analysis needs to dig deeper, and we need to realize that our liberation struggle is a class struggle. We can not just jump in and throw unconditional support behind everybody that looks like us. Who are our enemies, who are our friends? Who are we? Who lives in Ferguson, in Baltimore, in Detroit? Who goes to prison and jail for tickets, for small amounts of weed, while rich white kids walk free? Who gets shot by the police every day? Who is most at risk from food stamp cuts, from unemployment, from deportations (yes, they deport black folks too, ask our Caribbean and African brothers and sisters). Simply put, who, among our community, catches the most hell? These are the people who should be guiding and determining things. These are the people who’s ideas and lines need to be in command. These are the people who need to be organized, or whose organizing efforts need to be supported. Everybody, everything, represents a specific class interest. Communists represent the interests and struggle for the dominance of the working class and the most oppressed segments of a population.

People like DeRay McKesson represent the interests of the bourgeoisie, or the ruling class, exploitative element of the black population. They are tied to the interests of the white supremacist, imperialist bourgeoisie, which is the number one exploiter of the world’s people. See Jesse Jackson shaking hands with Hillary Clinton. See DeRay eating lunch with her. See them all over the news every time something happens, saying we need to vote for so-and-so (knowing full well that voting has never done shit of importance for us). See DeRay on Twitter after the brother in Dallas righteously shot the pigs, saying “y’all, this is not what we’re about”. Of course it’s not what he’s about, he’s closer to a pig than to any brother of mine or yours. See him allowing himself to be used to push everything from cell phones to potato chips. He’s paid. He’s a sellout. He makes money. He cares about himself and himself only. He is fundamentally tied to the interests of the white imperialist-capitalists that rob, steal from, gentrify, and drive our communities to the breaking point. This is what the Filipino, Chinese, and Indian brothers and sisters called a “comprador”. A traitor. An enemy of his own people. His line is the same as theirs, his interests are theirs. He is not a true leader of our people because it was not the lowest and deepest segments of our population that put him where he is, he chose to insinuate himself into the people’s struggle to make a name for himself, build up his influence, spread his bourgeois line, and ascend to heaven. Meanwhile, the black people he claims to represent remain broke, homeless, starving, and hungry. Where is DeRay? Trying to become a second Obama (yet another black fool who has done absolutely nothing for the people, except more insidious).

What does real black leadership look like? Dig deep, listen to and question everything, every line they put out, whether it be a party, a mass organization, or an individual. Marxist-Leninist-Maoists look at everything we see, and ask “for whom”? What is the class content and class character of this statement, this organization, this person, this line? What is their relationship to the masses of our people, what does it look like? Where does it come from? Whose interests does it represent? Are they among the people frequently? Or do they work in an office all the time, or do they hit the streets? Do they oppose the people when they rise in righteous rebellion, telling them “this is not the way, do it right, go home”? Are they afraid of guns, morbidly so? If so, they’re not for you. They’re playing. They’re petit-bourgeois/bourgeois in essence. Are they Democrats or some “new political party”, trying to get you to back such and such a candidate, or give your support to some nonsense? They’re not for you. Political power does not grow from a ballot box, it grows from the barrel of a gun. This system cannot be reformed or willed away. If Martin Luther King and the mainstream civil rights movement couldn’t do it, nobody can. The Urban League, NAACP, and other groups of this type are not for us. They’re bought and paid for, sponsored by banks. Look to the grassroots. Look to the sisters living in the hood who’ve taken it upon themselves to repair houses and train for self defense against pigs and abusers in the community. Look to the young brothers and sisters doing copwatch. Look to the people doing gang intervention. Look to the people looking around abandoned buildings for missing black women and girls that the police don’t give a shit about. Look to the regular people who are community minded and who are taking it upon themselves to organize for their communities. If you are a black Communist, which you should be, you should be working actively to try to get all these individuals and groups together, form mass organizations, and work together to solve problems from the grassroots. Scattered and fractured groups cannot build power, united fronts and cohesive groups doing shit in an area can. Not because it feels good, but because it is essential to build actual dual power in communities, to set up base areas that are run by the people, under revolutionary Communist, meaning Marxist-Leninist-Maoist leadership, utilizing the mass line method of leadership. You should be listening to all of those who are doing shit in the community, everyone you work and go to school with. These are where your ideas for new activities and new programs come from. Analyze them using our revolutionary theory, throw out the bullshit ideas, keep the good, sharpen and polish them up, and take them back as real ideas and programs for the community. If it’s bullshit, the people won’t fuck with them. If it’s right, people will like it and you’ll grow. You should be seriously considering armed self-defense, not because it looks cool, but because these crackers will kill you. Every armed black person is a potential people’s army soldier, or militiaperson. Get a gun, learn to use it. Get many guns, teach your comrades and family how to use them. Anybody that tells you that you shouldn’t want the gun is a fool. Don’t fetishize the gun, and realize that the politics behind the gun are what is ultimately important. If fascists and bad elements come out to harass the community, show up and let them know that we have guns too, and that they aren’t scaring anybody. Train in hand to hand combat. You should be working to actively make new Communists from the community, particularly from the working class. Build study groups. Enough Communists come from college campuses, we need them from the streets, because a Communist from the hood that does work there everyday is better than one from a college campus that does nothing but lay in books all day. This is how we can start to beat the opportunist thieves like DeRay, and this is how we can raise up a million armed fists that can smash this country to bits and secure for ourselves and our comrades overseas and at home a future. Shit’s serious. Treat it like it is.