By Alieu Bah

“I don’t want to die and leave a few sad songs and a hump in the ground as my only monument. I want to leave a world that is liberated from trash, pollution, racism, nation-states, nation-state wars and armies, from pomp, bigotry, parochialism, a thousand different brands of untruth and licentious, usurious economics.”
— George Jackson

The dragon never physically flew out, but his thoughts, writings, and practice encircled the black globe in the fire-spitting style of a true and living dragon — the metaphor gains sharpness the deeper we delve in the many variants of the lives and afterlives of the man. George Jackson was the compañero who wasn’t afraid; a righteous brother who frightened and shook the empire whiles locked up in her deadly dungeons for all his adult life. What conditions create a man so beautiful, cold, calculated, and brilliant as George? Why was the system so afraid of a young black brother such as this? Why did he stand out and continue to do so after all this time? To look at George’s life is to see a body in motion, racked with questions of the impossible and a near denial that such a man really did walk amongst us; nay, caged amongst us.

Studying the life and times of brother George is to come to certain hard conclusions that are ever necessary in the grand scheme of things. It is to look at the prison system that kept him captive and see a slave plantation whose abolition has become an ever-important need in the age of mass-incarceration of black and African people in the US settler colony. The criminalization of black existence and the glaring contradictions of the capitalist dystopia as African lives continue to be in primitive accumulation. It is to see the enduring human spirit, despite captivity and slavery, flourishing and blossoming and yearning for nothing short of liberation and the human right to dignity. His life speaks across the times in a transhistorical encounter with our times when so many like him continue to suffer the privation of white supremacy and commodification of the human being.

At a personal, intimate level, to look at his life is to see a studious, steadfast and consistent life given to the liberation of black people, and all toiling people, under the yoke of capitalism-imperialism. A life lived in love of the people — a true ox for the people to ride. He laid no claims to grandeur or greatness, his preoccupation was with how we get free! How can the unconsoled be consoled and the last become first. But George comes from a tradition, a living lineage that inspired his whole life as a revolutionary black man in the hellhole of the imperial state. For we recognize that the individual is a social being who’s becoming and fullness is only realized through the people. He knew this too, hence his constant emphasis on taking Revolution back to the masses; the sufferer, the fella, the captured and the odds job man.

Black August started as a commemoration of George’s defiant spirit, but more than that, it is testimony to that radical, revolutionary tradition that never quenches. The August of our lives as a global African humanity stretches back to Touissant and the Haitian Revolution, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the birth of Garvey and Fred Hampton and many many more. August is indeed very august and replete with our glorious struggles for liberation and self-determination. In connecting George Jackson to this living and breathing tradition, we honor him truly as he would have wanted to be. Constantly in his letters we are reminded that he is with the progressive forces of the African world, that his sustained inspiration came from giants of the struggle the likes of Kwame Nkrumah, Lumumba, Fanon, etc. What this means for us today is to go back to that source from whence he was drinking from and deduce lessons and learnings in advancing this unfinished project of national liberation.

Nkrumah, like many others from his time, emphasized in no uncertain terms the need for African unification under scientific socialism. This is an integral part of the tradition we have inherited today and is linked intimately with the just and righteous struggles of black people in America. The home of black people in the diaspora and at home remains in Africa, and until such a time when this homeland of blackness is liberated and free from the machinations of domination, black people everywhere will be powerless, disrespected, and oppressed at will. And today, as Africa grapples with failed neocolonial states, black people continue to be the skunk of the planet wherever you might go around the world.

This then calls for a shared internationalism that is grounded foremost in revolutionary Pan-Africanism in the continuity provided to us by the likes of Kwame Ture and the All African People’s Revolutionary Party. In times gone by, in the callings of Marcus Garvey and UNIA to rally Africans all over the world and to build alliances where needed to advance our cause.

Beyond Pan-Africanism, the struggle to dismantle the neocolonial conditions in which black folks continue to live in the United States, like George Jackson brilliantly told us decades ago, has to be linked to an international struggle of the oppressed, and as such it will be won when the global struggle, which Afro America is an integral part of, will see the end of the empire with her tentacles cut off from all over the oppressed world. Fascism in America is trained and perfected on black bodies, then transferred and expertly translated as policy around the world. At the same time, military killers in Iraq go home to terrorize black lives in the streets of Minneapolis. Many locations, one enemy. This too must be understood clearly and the lessons applied for our inevitable victory.

Ultimately, it’s a recognition of the sheer power and possibilities that lay in the hands of Afro America that will give Black August it’s due place as an institution for self-determination and radiant new beginnings. Those millions of beaten down, imprisoned, overworked and back-bent workers and peasants that make America’s machines run are the only true vanguard of the humane struggle to change the conditions of humanity and halt an empire whose barbarism has outshone all other empires before her.

Oppressed humanity continues to look to Africans in America as they lock horns with the devil. Knowing this contending class of people will determine the course of human history — the one who emerges victorious moves the old hands of the human story, either to prosperity for all, or perdition. But knowing the arc of history, in the end it’s the oppressed who win since they have nothing to protect and everything to gain in this glorious fight. A protracted and long struggle, but victory being assured for the long-suffering fella who embodies the truth in her very being.

To truly honor George Jackson and the Soledad brothers is to struggle for what they stood for; it is to study their bequeathal to this generation and make it come to life. To organize and study hard as they did, and never for once cower before the elemental forces of oppression. To never be counted amongst the broken — George died victorious and unbroken in the harshest of places, in the hands of the most vicious. To know that eventually the prison gates will open and the real dragon will fly out.

By Matthew Dolezal

Four decades of neoliberal Reaganomics has decimated the American poor and working class. Median wages have remained stagnant since the late 1970s, despite a consistent increase in productivity. The top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the country's wealth, and top CEOs make more than 300 times that of the average worker (which is a 1,000 percent increase since 1978). There are 46 million Americans officially living in poverty, but, due to the arbitrary nature of the poverty line, another 100 million are "near poor" (i.e. cannot afford basic necessities). And keep in mind - this is happening in the richest country in the world. These third-world levels of economic inequality make the US look a lot like an oligarchy. The vast majority of new income goes to the top 1 percent, and one family - the Waltons of the Walmart empire - has more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the population.

Wealth concentration and poverty under neoliberalism aren't abstract concepts; they have tangible consequenses. For example, half of all Americans don't even live paycheck to paycheck, student loan debt is diminishing the prospects of home ownership, climate change is beginning to devastate poor communities while helping the rich, and 45,000 people die every year due to a lack of health insurance. In Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967, he said :

"One day we must ask the question, 'Why are there forty million poor people in America?' When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy."

But this is a democracy, right? Who would vote for such a grim existence? Well, according to an academic study from Cambridge , there is literally no correlation between public opinion and government policy. Turns out the plutocrats are running the show (thanks, in part, to Citizens United ).

Generic, theoretical capitalism is inseparable from our current paradigm of advanced, hyper-consumerist, job-shipping, union-busting, soul-crushing neoliberalism. Prominent capitalists have fought desperately to achieve this sadistic system, which is the culmination of an evolutionary history of laissez-faire. One day, long ago, Adam Smith planted roses, and all that remain are the thorns. To quote King again, "today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness."

But capitalism is not an equal-opportunity destroyer. These social tragedies demonstrably and empirically affect folks of color at vastly disproportional rates. For instance, the average net worth of black households is $6,314, compared to $110,500 for the average white household. Blacks are more than twice as likely as whites to be poor, and a white male with a criminal record is more likely to get a job than an equally qualified person of color with a clean record. Median black household income is approximately $43,300, while median white household income is around $71,300. This discrepancy is roughly 40 percent greater today than it was in 1967. And these economic disparities are just the beginning. For instance, in the area of mass incarceration, more than 40 percent of US inmates are black men, while that demographic only makes up 6.5 percent of the general population. In the area of police violence, black teens age 15-19 are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police than white teens of the same age group. These statistics could continue for pages. Profound systemic racism poisons every aspect of American society. These horrors are manifestations of the racial caste system that has always existed in the US, which is discussed at length by Michelle Alexander in her groundbreaking book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

We often forget that merely five decades ago, our country maintained a government-sactioned apartheid system. This included the intentional creation of black ghettos through redlining and other discriminatory policies. Political inertia, mixed with the racist War on Drugs, has preserved the vestiges of white supremacy. The reality on the ground looks a lot like the same ol' Jim Crow; that guy we swore we kicked out in 1964.

But racism isn't just institutional; it is often overt. The recent emergence of Trump made this crystal-clear . Not only did the Ku Klux Klan and white nationalists endorse him, but even for his voters, " fear of diversity " was a significant motivating factor.

The evils of racism are clearly apparent to any non-psychopath, but racial ideologies also serve to pit poor and working-class white folks against people of color and minorities, distracting them from their true nemesis; the ruling class. This is a classic example of "divide and conquer," and has benefited the elites immensely. Anti-racism activist and author Tim Wise elucidates this phenomenon in a concise Marxian manner:

"The history of America is the history of rich white men telling not rich white people that their enemies are black and brown."

Let's put an end to this madness. Let's build a movement to confront and destroy this dual evil of economic and racial injustice. Might I suggest…

Socialists have a rich tradition of fighting racism, from the Communist Party of Alabama , to Cuba's critical support of black South Africans during Apartheid, to early 20th century socialist politician Eugene Debs , to revolutionary Marxist Rosa Luxemburg , to the original Black Panthers Party . Socialists not only see racism as contrary to worker solidarity, but as a destructive and dehumanizing hierarchy, just like the class system itself. And indeed, capitalism and racism have a symbiotic relationship. Two modern organizations that are battling this double-headed beast are Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Redneck Revolt .

Founded in 1982, DSA is the largest socialist organization in the US, with a total dues-paying membership of 25,000 (a four-fold increase since November of 2016). Members have been active in opposing the agenda of the Trump regime, as well as carrying the torch of the Bernie Sanders political revolution. DSA has been on the front lines fighting for a $15 minimum wage, universal healthcare, LGBTQ equality, climate justice, reproductive rights, and many other progressive causes. However, one thing that separates DSA from other left-leading organizations such as Our Revolution is their vehement anti-capitalism. DSA document Where We Stand: Building the Next Left explains:

"We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.

We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships."

On the topic of anti-racist activism, DSA Honorary Chair and prominent intellectual Cornel West writes :

"A long and deep legacy of white supremacy has always arrested the development of US democracy… When the system is declining, it can bring despair. That's why Black Lives Matter - and all other young people of all colors who are mobilizing - is a beautiful thing. We are having a moral and spiritual awakening. It gives us democratic hope... It's time to move from being spectators, to being actors."

Members of Redneck Revolt are not liberals . They are pro-gun, pro-labor, anti-fascist, and anti-racist. The movement is rapidly expanding, with more than 30 chapters around the US. Developing around 2009 as an outgrowth of the John Brown Gun Club, this diverse group now focuses on recruiting rural, southern and Appalachian working-class folks to join the fight against white supremacy and capitalism, while protecting and supporting people of color and other marginalized communities. After all, many of these poor southern white folks have been voting against their own interests for decades after falling for the xenophobic rhetoric of prominent politicians. Dave Strano, a founding member of the organization, explains:

"The history of the white working class has been a history of being an exploited people. However, we've been an exploited people that further exploits other exploited people. While we've been living in tenements and slums for centuries, we've also been used by the rich to attack our neighbors, coworkers, and friends of different colors, religions and nationalities."

Member Max Neely summarized their strategy by saying simply:

"We use gun culture as a way to relate to people. No liberal elitism. Our basic message is: guns are fine, but racism is not."

Now, I know just mentioning the term "white privilege" can make people uncomfortable , but this sociological reality must be acknowledged and dismantled as an inherent aspect of entrenched white supremacy. White privilege is the flip-side of the oppression and marginalization faced by people of color. Simply being given an unconditional pass to avoid oppression, discrimination, profiling, and other forms of profound inequality is in itself a major manifestation of white privilege. But an understanding of intersectionality as it relates to privilege is also crucial, just as it is in understanding oppression and exploitation. If one has privileges based on other sociological aspects of their identity, this privilege may extend beyond merely avoiding the injustices uniquely faced by non-whites. In addition to race, these realms include class, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, etc. The more dominant groups one belongs to, the more privileges that are usually afforded to that individual. Based on a rudimentary analysis of modern American society, the most privileged demographic would be wealthy, white, heterosexual, cisgendered, Christian men. Indeed, if you pay even peripheral attention to current events and history, you'll quickly realize that these are, more often than not, the people who own and control our society and have since its inception. One such man was "founding father" and forth president of the United States, James Madison, who was passionate about protecting "the minority of the opulent against the majority." Oh, and he also owned over a hundred slaves. There are still dudes like this, but now they're banksters and Koch -fiends. Let's break this trend. To those of us with various forms of privilege, let's use it to fight for a better future for everyone.

The genocide of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas was our nation's original sin. White supremacy and capitalism were then built upon this rotten foundation. These parasitic abominations emerged simultaneously in American society; let's dismantle them simultaneously as well.