Comrades, I am offering this piece as a part of the ongoing discussion surrounding the current socio-political movement in the furtherance of New Afrikan designation and human rights. Specifically, the topic of defacing or destroying symbols, statues and institutions representative of oppression and exploitation. Many people fail to group the significance of such actions and thus incorrectly label such as senseless banditry. That couldn’t be further from the truth and this essay is written with the intention of telling you why.
Conquest and Historical Markers:
Going back since the days of the Roman Empire, which Amerikkka is modeled after, or maybe further, civilizations have gone through great lengths to create historical markers to solidify their expansion, exploitation and conquest of another civilization or nation. These markers are often statues, schools, or some other cultural identifier. Each and every one of these are instituted as recognition of one oppressed nation’s subjugation under an oppressor nation.
In this case the so called ‘white’ nation of Amerikkkans is and has been the oppressor of New Afrikan people. Each and every removal or attempted removal of these type of symbols indicate, or should indicate, that the masses are not ignorant as to who is the cause of our misery. Some conscious people feel as though “What is that gonna solve?” or “That’s not gonna liberate us”. The latter of which is true. However, the liberation of a colonized or semi-colonized nation occurs in stages, not one moment.
As to the first question, one must first understand that the oppressed nationalities or internal semi-colonies within Amerikkka are in the first stage of liberation. The first stage is characterized by an ongoing war of the people’s consciousness. Many radical elements often articulate the importance of winning over the masses. This is because without winning over the masses liberation will not be possible. For, as often stated, “It is the masses who make history”.
So often we get caught up in raising consciousness via literature, panels or other platforms of dialogue, yet we forget that practice advances consciousness faster and further than theory. The act of being engaged in such a feat as dismantling a centuries old statue or the renaming of an institution provides experience in struggle against the oppressor, the State apparatus which is, of course, owned and controlled by a predominately, but not exclusively, white bourgeoisie-capitalist-imperialist class.
With that said, it is of paramount importance that those engaged masses come to the understanding of WHY such actions are significant and what those symbols and institutions uphold and represent. It is not merely “racism” that these symbols and institutions uphold. These sort of “monuments” are symbols of victory, the victory of war.
When we understand that, we’ll also see that we, New Afrikans, along with other oppressed nations and our allies, are and have been at war. Such war is due to our continued colonization here on occupied Turtle Island a.k.a. Amerikkka. Thus the eradicating of these symbols is a message that we, the people, are reigniting our offensive in this war. We are erasing that victory and beginning another battle. This is the understanding we must adopt and promote, for we are not a conquered people. We are a nation of New Afrikans and a united front of oppressed people on a move.
Tekkk$a$ and Property:
The imperialist state of Tekkk$a$ is the ultimate symbol of white supremacist, imperialist ideology. When one thinks of Tekkk$a$ often there are thoughts of “racism”, invasion, theft, corruption and proud arrogance. Many folkkks on the opposite end of the political spectrum as those who may destroy federal or state monuments often spew the rhetoric when organizing for counter-insurgency, that they’re protecting “their” property. Often insurgent types have no property to protect, which is indicative of the class divide in the U$ Empire, in that it is predominately dictated by the white Amerikkkan oppressor nation. It is also of significance to note that not all that long ago New Afrikans were considered “property” and that the War of 1836, as well as the Civil War, were fought because white supremacist elements, colonizers and capitalists desired to “protect property” (New Afrikan slaves).
While it is widely known that Tekkk$a$ is stolen land from Mexico, the white occupying force has established “property” and institutions in every facet of society to “Remember the Alamo”. That is, to celebrate the victory of a war of invasion, theft and imperialist exploitation that was fought not merely or the right to “independence”, as we’re taught in so called “Texas history” class, but that war was fought in the defense of the institution of Afrikan and New Afrikan slavery and white supremacy.
The founding of what we know as Tekkk$a$ dates back to 1821, when the relatively newly independent Mexican republic granted a petition from one Moses Austin, to establish an anglo-Amerikkkan colony in Texas. In January 1821 the petition was granted. The deal did not make mention of slavery on either side, yet the colonizers that Moses Austin intended to have settle in his Texas colony were slave holding anglo-Amerikkkans from the old KKKonfederate south. Moses, however, would not survive the migration to San Antonio De Baxar. Therefore the land grant subsequent oppressor nations’ invasion and colonization of Texas was inherited by Stephen Fuller Austin, his son.
Stephen F. Austin, then only twenty-eight, was a staunch and avowed white supremacist. He adhered to the view that Anglo-Saxons were chosen by God to rule the world, with Afrikan, Asian, and indigenous peoples subjugated under “white” rule. Austin drew up the plan for the distribution of Tekkk$a$’ land, which Lester G. Bugbee described in his book Slavery in Texas this way:
“This plan, after making provision for the head of the family and allowing a liberal portion for the wife and each child, further provided for a grant of eighty acres of land for each slave belonging to the family. In approving this plan, the government of Mexico, through its representative in Texas, acquiesced in and substantially encouraged the introduction of slaves into the new settlement. A great many immigrants found their way into Texas before the summer of 1822, most of them bearing contracts signed by Austin or his agents, in which they were promised land in accordance with the plan already mentioned. They were nearly all from the southern portion of the United States, and many of them were the owners of at least a small number of slaves. Thus it was that the institution was introduced into Texas.”
We see here that the colony of Tekkk$a$, which would become its own KKKountry prior to being one of the United States, was indeed, as the saying goes, “founded on the backs of Afrikan people”, not merely through the back breaking slave labor but because New Afrikan and Afrikan slasves were property that created more property, our people were the capital of the KKKriminals who founded Tekkk$a$. How many well-to-do anglo-Amerikkkan Tekkk$an families owe a alrge portion of their inter-generational wealth to New Afrikans? Thus it is rational to state that the expropriation and/or destruction of Tekkk$a$ KKKapital or symbols of imperialist victory, are reparations and righteous, justified actions when carried out by the oppressed victims (Chicanos, New Afrikans, Mexicanos, Indigenous) of the Tekkk$a$ occupying force.
Erase a Legacy of Oppression and White Supremacy:
In Tekkk$a$ there stands a number of institutions or symbols that uphold the Tekkk$an legacy of white supremacy, slavery and exploitation. Only naming a few, of course there is the state’s capital and its largest city named after white supremacist slave owners, the aforementioned Stephen F Austin and Sam Houston. There are a number of schools and universities named in honor of both of these characters. In Houston, the city of the slave owner and a man who defended white supremacy with his life blood on the battlefield, there is a public highway named in his honor, the Sam Houston Parkway or Beltway. Houston is the fourth largest city in occupied Turtle Island. One can only guess the number of Chicanos and New Afrikans who travel this highway daily, monthly, yearly, all the while having the arrogant stamp of occupation and slavery looming over their heads.
Still there are more, such as schools in Houston, by no coincidence in ghettos and barrios, named in honor of even more white supremacist and defenders and practitioners of Afrikan slavery (which was outlawed in 1808, but was still practiced in Tekkk$a$ as an “illegal” smuggling for New Afrikan bodies), such as provisional President of the KKKonfederacy, Jefferson Davis (J. Davis High School), Robert E Lee high school in southwest Houston (named in “honor” of the infamous general of the KKKonfederacy). There is a Stephen F Austin high school, a Dick Dowling middle school, attended primarily by New Afrikan kids from the surrounding ghettos on the southside of Houston, the slave master’s city. Dick Dowling was a KKKonfederate and slave owner, a white supremacist. There are more, but for the sake of space and time I’ll stop the list here.
I would like to put forth the notion that Tekkk$a$ youth, radicals, abolitionists and proclaime revolutionaries, should organize, mobile and call for the renaming of these schools. This call and action should also be directed at the universities, highway and city names “honoring” these devilish men of the past. Those who uphold the legacy of slavery of New Afrikan people or the theft and exploitation of Aztlan have a choice. Rename these institutions at the behest of the people or have them deface and destroyed.
More on Tekkk$a$ and Its Legacy of Black Lives Don’t Matter:
Tekkk$a$ has had and continues to have a culture that arrogantly upholds all manner of white supremacy. Tekkk$an$ of the “white” or anglo-Amerikkkan occupying force have always gone to great lengths to dehumanize New Afrikan, Chicano and Indigenous people.
After the Haitian revolution ended in 1804 whites feared that a similar mass slave rebellion could be ignited by New Afrikans in North Amerikkka. The general public fear was that, if the oppressor nation whites continued unabated the transportation of Afrikan slaves that New Afrikans would be the dominate population. To dwell such a dreaded reality the “trading” of slaves became illegal in North Amerikkka in 1808.
Of course, the “law” has never stopped white supremacy, nor the dehumanization of Afrikans. The east Tekkk$a$ town of Sabine Lake became a focal point in the “other” underground railroad, the one that led to slavery, not away from it.
“Many Afrikans brought to Sabine Lake were kidnapped British free men from Barbados, Afrikan indentured servants from the same region, or were kidnapped from Spanish slave ships. James Bowie, later of Alamo fame, realized a $65,000 profit from illegally transporting and selling 1,500 Afrikans from Sabine Lake into Louisiana.”
“Slave traders like Bowie purchased African-Americans from privateers like Jean Lafitte. Privateers would capture Spanish slave ships, imprison the Africans in slave pens, such as on Lafitte’s Galveston Island, Texas stronghold, then sell them to the highest bidder. American slavers continued the profitable traffic in Africans until the end of the Civil War.”
The above two quotes are derived from the book Civil War Slavery and are also quoted in Tom Big Warrior’s essay ‘The Legal Justification of Slavery in Amerikkka’.
James Bowie is “honored” today in many ways. From the knife named after him, to the notoriously white supremacist north Tekkk$a$ town of Bowie to the recent (2015) placard that was placed upon entering Bowie, Tekkk$a$, which stated, “Welcome to Bowie, Niggers Not Welcome After Dark”.
Bowie is known for staunch Klan activity. Many active Klansman have been known to work as prison guards at the James V. Allred Unit in Iowa Park, Tekkk$a$, where their knack for sadistic, racially motivated acts of hatred go unseen to the public eye.
Jean Lafitte, the privateer, kidnapper, murderer and slave trader mentioned above, whom held New Afrikans in pens like hogs, was “honored” by having a housing project in New Orleans named after him. The symbolism shouldn’t be lost on anyone. A person who had a slave pen to keep New Afrikan bodies in bondage, his name is representative of a high rise housing project designed for the housing of New Afrikans during a time when segregation laws and practices, among other things, were in place to keep New Afrikans in bondage.
In the book Really Remember The Alamo by William Kincaid, the author outlines the legacy of New Afrikan subjugation in Tekkk$a$ like this:
“In the September of 1829 slavery was prohibited in Mexico. Because the politically connected Texans were outraged, one month later, the law was changed to allow slavery only in Texas. A few months later in early 1830 Mexico altered its policy under a new government that was less interested in catering to Texas. Mexico passed a law that prohibited further American settlement, and banned importation of additional slaves into Texas. Stephen Austin presented a petition for independence to the Mexican government in 1833, and was then arrested and jailed, until 1835. At that time, there was about 20,000 Texans and 4,000 slaves in Texas. In December of 1835, General Antonio Santa Anna amended the slavery laws banning slavery in Texas. The Texans immediately rebelled and declared that they were seceded from Mexico.”
Kincaid continues by stating:
“One month after the Alamo, in March of 1836, Texas adopted a constitution which included a provision declaring slavery was legal in Texas. In April, Texans rallied under Sam Houston and “Remember the Alamo”. They defeated the Mexicans, declared the Republic of Texas, ratified the Texas constitution and requested US statehood as a slave state. The Mexican/American War was fought about 10 years after the Alamo, and added a buffer territory between the slave states and slave free Mexico, where many Africans had escaped to freedom.”
The constitution of 1845, ratified after the U$ annexed Tekkk$a$, defined New Afrikans as personal property. New Afrikans weren’t allowed to marry nor form a family, though many oppressors side stepped this law, allowing marriages and families, seeing that such increased the production rate and could also be used as a tool to control slaves via their families.
New Afrikans couldn’t protect themselves with arms or otherwise, being that it was also illegal to strike anyone white. New Afrikans couldn’t assemble or use the courts against the anglo oppressor nation people,
Tekkk$a$ today has a reputation for administering the death penalty and the unjust sentence of LWOP at a higher rate than other states. Like everywhere else, these penalties are utilized tools of national oppression against semi-colonized nationalities (New Afrikans, Chicanos, Indigenous). This practice is steeped in so-called “racism” and white supremacist capitalism.
In the early years of Tekkk$a$ (1840s), whippings were stated as an acceptable punishment for New Afrikans for minor “crimes” such as petty theft. For serious “crimes”, New Afrikans automatically received the death penalty and there were many lynched for no reason at all. My mind harkens back to the murders of Sandra Bland a few years and Hasan Shakur, Black August 31, 2006. Both were innocent New Afrikan freedom fighters lynched by the state apparatus apparatus of Tekkk$a$. May them both Rest in Power.
In the 1850s Tekkk$a$ considered slavery essential to its economy. By 1861 Tekkk$a$ had about 200,000 New Afrikan slaves. This was at the beginning of the Civil War when many KKKonfederate slave holders and big time plantation owners who were too affluent to fight in the Civil War, sent their slaves to Tekkk$a$ to prevent federal troops from freeing them. The reputation of Tekkk$an$’ staunch defense of slavery and dehumanization of Afrikan-ness was already well established. This was why there were so many slaves unaware of the supposed Emancipation Proclamation when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston on June 19th 1865, declaring all laws of Tekkk$a$ since 1861 were illegal. Lets not forget, the slave holders did not give up their “property” willfully. Even on Juneteenth they had to be forced by armed combat to relinquish their “property”.
The same rings true today, as New Afrikans, Chicano and First Nations’ self-determination is considered the white oppressor nation’s “property”, which they will not relinquish except by force of arms.
In Conclusion:
By any and all means necessary, we must FREE Tekkk$a$, FREE Aztlan and FREE New Afrika!
The general public must be made to understand that Tekkk$a$ slavery and exploitation continues unabated RIGHT NOW in each of the 100+ prisons owned and/or operated by the state. In the words of our newly freed Comrade Malik, “End prison slavery in Tekkk$a$”. Free political prisons held KKKaptive in Tekkk$a$’ gulags, such as our brother Xinachtli (Alvaro Luna Hernandez).
As it stands, the defacing and destroying of institutions, statues and the like that uphold this ugly legacy of Tekkk$a$ white supremacy and Amerikkkan imperialism is a conscious act of righteous justice, people’s justice.
As we continue to see in this den of murderers, kidnappers and thieves (Amerikkka), revolutionary people’s justice is the only justice we can get, for there is NO JUSTICE ON STOLEN LAND!
REBUILD!
You can write Comrade Monsour at:
Monsour G Owolabi 1856112
Allred Unit
2101 FM 369 N
Iowa Park, Texas 76367
Mongoose Distro 