VOICES: LET’S FACE IT, PEOPLE ARE CALLING FOR REFORMS, WHAT WE NEED IS A REVOLUTION BY DURON CHAVIS

Those of us who study history, particularly the black liberation movement, it is understood that the civil rights movement did not emerge out of a vacuum. Long before Martin, there had been community-based responses to voting rights, police brutality and desegregation in black communities across the country. However, due to the dismal way we are taught history, we only identify with the iconic folks like Martin.

Black-led organizations like SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) did work in communities during the ’60s, and countless organizers tapped into local people to advance the struggle for human rights all across the south. The evolution of SNCC eventually led to the dismissal of white organizers as the call for black power was raised. It is fascinating to watch the evolution of BLM (Black Lives Matter) across the country as we see the rise of White people adopting and superseding the numbers of Black people involved in the movement on a ground level, particularly in Richmond. At what point will the white allies be dismissed so that the movement for reform of this system can evolve into an intentional work towards black liberation?

At what point will the white allies be dismissed so that the movement for reform of this system can evolve into an intentional work towards black liberation?

We know, through study, that the evolution from civil rights (struggle) to black liberation (struggle) relied on the evolution of local Black leadership from one of reform to one of revolution – in the form of not only Black-led community-based groups to national organizations such as the Black Panther Party and the paramilitary organizations such as the Black Liberation Army.

We saw the demand for nationalism raised by the Republic of New Afrika. We saw Black leaders advance our struggle internationally in the forms of Robert F. Williams, Kwame Ture, and Assata Shakur. We also saw the international span of the movement manifested in the form of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party.

We also know that due to counterintelligence operations by the US government that the work of black liberation during the ’70s was disrupted. People were killed by the police and imprisoned with many still languishing in prison to this day. In the last 50 years, organizations such as the NAACP and the Urban League have assumed an accommodationist position – solely focused, for the most part, on reform of policy. Cultural organizations have kept the fire of revolution alive in black communities across the country. Organizations like the Nation of Islam have remained steadfast in building independent Black power across the country.

In the light of the BLM movement in Richmond, we have not seen this movement pick up where our predecessors left off. Across the country, we see calls for reform but not for revolution, as were the case before cointelpro (COunter INTELligence PROgram) defeated our movement before. When do we become honest about this moment and address the regression it represents in light of what those who came before us fought for?

We cannot get Black liberation via a predominately white ally-filled movement. Kwame Ture taught us to organize our communities – not to let White people be the political force that influences the change in our communities. Despite the claims that Black people lead the white allies – we know that implicit bias, White saviorism and paternalism corrupts white efforts for social change. The few Black organizations that exist in comparison to the droves of white people who claim that Black Lives Matter do not have the funding, nor the political education necessary or the organizational experience necessary to check the predominate whiteness that surrounds them without a mass movement of revolutionary Black people to check the power differential.

The radical left Black voices that challenge the white “allies” are marginalized by the few Black folks the white allies are comfortable with because they benefit from the proximity they have to white folks repelling any and all critique of strategy and tactic being used. Calls for reparations and land are cast aside in favor of reformist demands, such as defunding the police or the Marcus Alert. Both are insufficient demands for the former capital of the confederacy. They are aimed only at the police and the government – which allows all of the white folks who benefit from white privilege, and that have inherited land and money from slavery and discrimination off the hook. What is revolutionary about that? Nothing at all. Nothing at all.