Class
Class is the official podcast of the National Political Education Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America. We believe working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few. Class is a podcast where we ask socialists about why they are socialists, what socialism looks like, and how we, as the working class, can become the ruling class.
Class
The 4th of July: Against Genocide, for Democracy and Liberation
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Jalil Muntaqim and Sid C. W. discuss the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, national liberation struggles, and the Spirit of Mandela coalition's July 4 National Mobilization Against Genocide. Jalil is a member of the Spirit of Mandela coalition, and Sid is a member of DSA's National Political Committee (NPC).
Information about the mobilization can be found here. DSA is one of many organizations endorsing the mobilization, and members interested in attending or hosting a watch party can email Sid at sid@dsacommittees.org
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At one time when I was growing up, I thought we're gonna have a revolution in my lifetime, right? I have since matured and understand that it's generational, right? From one generation to the next, right? So I'm no longer fighting for myself. I'm fighting for my great grandkids, my grandkids, right, and for their future. And it's important for us to collectively understand that we need to envision what our future is going to look like. And it has to look as something strange to us, right? Because what is familiar is harmful. What is familiar is deadly. What is familiar is murderous. What is familiar is genocidal. So we have to create something that's opposite of that.
SPEAKER_02Hi comrades, and welcome to CLASS, the podcast of Democratic Socialists of America's National Political Education Committee. My name is Luke Pickerell. On this episode, I'll be talking with Sid and Jaleel about the spirit of Mandela Coalition's July 4th national mobilization against genocide in Atlanta. We'll also talk about the 4th of July and U.S. history more generally. Before we dive in, a reminder that class is available on all major podcast platforms. Please consider becoming a DSA member by following the link in the podcast description. You can also send us a message about the episode and sign up for Red Letter, MPEC's monthly newsletter, using the provided links. Well, hi Juliel and Sid, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of class. I was hoping we could start by hearing an introduction. If you could explain uh who you are, what what what what brings you here, uh give us a little sense of your of your political development. I think that'd be a nice way to start to start this conversation. Juliel, could could I start with you?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Um Asalam Alaikum, peace, pause, uh Shalom, uh Hawei, uh, Ha Ping, uh, whatever your native language, I wish you peace and solidarity. I'm Julial Mutakim. Uh I am a um a member of the Spirit Mandel Coalition and uh the co-founder of the National Jericho Movement. Uh I am a veteran member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. I served nearly 50 years in prison, 49 years and certain months in prison as a result of my activities and my work in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. Uh I have been released from prison. I went to prison in 1971, August uh 28th, 1971, after the assassination of uh our beloved comrade George Jackson on August 21st, 1971. The following weekend we went to uh to avenge his assassination. And unfortunately, we had technical difficulties, uh, our equipment uh jammed, and resulting in uh car chase shootout and my capture. As a result of my capture, I went to prison, and in prison I continued to organize while in prison. And I established the first national newspaper uh of prisoners uh called Arm of the Spirit. I also had the first uh establish and organized the first national um petition to the United Nations, uh uh prisoners' petition to the United Nations, and uh uh that resulted in it being heard on the issues of uh 13th Amendment uh prison slavery and the existence of political prisoners. Uh in 1998, I initiated the call for the establishment of the National Jericho movement uh in support of political prisoners. And uh in um uh 2018 I initiated the uh uh campaign or the international tribunal uh that we're gonna be talking about today. Uh the International Tribunal uh I uh was uh inspired that that development. I asked for the International Tribunal to come back to the United States. We had had them come to the United States back in 1978 or 79 uh as a result of the UN petition campaign that I had initiated uh back then. And um I and while in prison, I authored two books, uh, We Are Our Own Liberators and Escaping the Prison Fade the Black. Um and I presently have a a podcast that I'm uh um uh hosting called We Are Our Own Liberators Podcast, hosted by Jalou Mutakin. It is on um Anything Entertainment Network, it's streaming on Anything Entertainment Network, uh and uh produced by Black Dragon Multimedia Enterprise. Uh my two books and also got my website back up, right? And if people want to really check who uh my contribution to the overall struggle, they can go to W A O O L Jalil Mutakim.com. That's W-A-O-O-L Jalil Mutakin.com. And when you do so, please be mindful of the fact that there is a um a merch shop there uh for raising funds for our campaigns and our issues and and our our our our struggle, essentially, right? Uh one of the things we have to do, we got to figure out some new ways to create revenue streams for our movement. We are fighting against billionaires, right? And we can't fight against billionaires with cake sales and cupcake sales and selling candies on at the corner store, okay? Uh we got to do better, and we got to figure out how to do so. And so uh I'm trying to contribute to that, that, that capacity in a little small way, but we really need to grow out our capacity to uh uh, especially for our comrades on the inside, our political prisoners, right? So with much of the funds that I raise go to. Go to their defense, go to their cosmic commissaire, go to their phones, go to their needs, right? But not only that, but we have elders, right? Veteran members of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, elders in our community who are some uh couple that I know of are living in shelters, right? We don't have a Social Security because of the many years we spent in prison. I don't have Social Security, right? Um we don't have a veterans fund. Um we don't have the uh uh um means for which we can retire on. We don't have a retirement fund. There's a retirement fund for revolutionaries, okay? And so we have some elders in our community who need help, need assistance. And so we have to figure out ways how to ensure that our our our beloved uh comrades uh live as much as comfortable as they possibly can within this capitalist imperialist colonial uh white supremacist fascist system that we are are striving to uh uh to uh overturn, right, to put it mildly, right? To dismantle, uh to put it more directly, right? And so that's the golden objective, and that's uh basically the work that I do. Since I've been out, I work for an organization called the Citizen Action of New York, which is a nonprofit. Uh, but they do some of the best work that I can say, right, uh uh in uh in New York State, uh challenging uh um uh racial capitalism, right? And uh the the forces of uh the billionaires who control the state. As an example, uh we have one campaign called Ioni, right? Invest in in our New York, which is a tax the rich uh uh uh campaign, right? Where we are demanding the state to raise the taxes on the millionaires and billionaires, right? So we have some funds uh for our most impoverished communities. I live in Rochester. Rochester is the third worst city of poverty in New York State, the fifth worst city of poverty in the country, right? They have an infant mortality rate that's five times higher than the national average. We're losing our babies as a result of poverty, and how funds are being allocated or misallocated. Uh uh so we got campaigns uh working on those issues as well. So uh upon my release in 2020, um, I've been continuing to engage and struggle. Uh I was organized before I went to prison, I was organized while I was in prison, and now that I'm back out, I'm back to organizing again. That's my story.
SPEAKER_02It's great to it's great to have that introduction from you, Jaleel. And we particularly, or I particularly wanted to have this conversation with you and Sid to talk about the the spirit of Mandela coalition and this national mobilization against genocide in Atlanta, Georgia, which we'll which we'll get into. But first, Sid, could you uh introduce yourself, please?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And thank you, Jalil, for joining DSA on on our podcast. I think really some of the work that is being done, especially in New York right now, to continue fighting poverty, especially outside of new New York City, through really building a radical and liberatory vision for black America, is is required here just as much as anywhere else. And it's really exciting that we are going to be able to take this show on the road to Atlanta in the coming months. So uh I'm Sid, I'm Sid CW. Uh I am a member of DSA. I serve on DSA's national political committee, the board of directors, and I have been involved in the in DSA and political work for not very long, admittedly. I've only joined DSA in 2022, but am a member of New York City DSA and the central Brooklyn branch of that chapter, and have been heavily involved in a lot of the electoral work that we've done here, both in terms of fighting for state legislative candidates and sending Zohan Mamdani to office as the mayor of New York City. I think for me, one of the clear goals that I've tried to talk to a lot of my comrades about is that elections are exciting, but as we know, they are not really necessarily political power, right? We are trying to bring about the merger of the economic struggle and the political struggle, whether that's happening in the halls of power, whether that's happening in the streets, and making sure that we are building the consciousness of working class America, especially working class black America, to actually democratically have control over the political process through organizations like DSA, and of course the constellation of many other groups that really are giving people a real space to do politics. That's why I'm in DSA, is because I see it as one of the few places in the entire country where a regular working class person can show up and participate in a collective action and actually make demands of the people that we've worked to put into office. And it only works when we make those demands. So it's really, really great to be here, especially as we're talking about this coalition, what I think DSA's role in it is, and really continuing the struggle for black liberation as an or as an organization that is continuing to build up our our political strength.
SPEAKER_02Well, let's let's turn to the to the event. So on July 4th, the Spirit of Mandela Coalition is hosting the national mobilization against genocide in Atlanta. And I wanted to read just a brief section from the event description. It reads in part, quote, although many Americans on July 4th, 2026 will wave flags and celebrate bombs bursting in air, for the 250th anniversary of the USA's Declaration of Independence, for many others, the relevance of the declaration will be centered on a critique of tyrannical leaders and a government celebrating 250 years of genocidal policies and practices. That's from the the Spirit of Mandela national mobilization website. And I think as we mentioned, DSA has endorsed the event. I know Sid, you plan on being there. I hope to be there myself. I hope other folks who are listening to the podcast will come as well. But I wanted to start here with you, Jaleel. Can you tell us about the event a little bit? What got it off the ground, what you all are hoping to accomplish with the mobilization?
SPEAKER_00Well, absolutely. And thank you for the question. Thank you for uh granting me this opportunity to speak to your members and all those who will be uh listening and watching this uh this podcast. Uh I think it's first to recognize the origins of this uh of the Spirit of Mandela Coalition. Um and that happened in 2018. I was locked up in uh uh Southport, which is a maximum security uh lockdown facility. And I was sent there for teaching a class while I was in Attica, um teaching a uh an approved uh black study class, black history class. And um uh so I began in 1861 and brought all the way up to 1966. In 1966, when he talked about history in 1966, you got to talk about the Black Panther Party, right? And so when I began to talk about the Black Panther Party, uh the administration uh uh locked the program down and put me in solitary confinement for four months, saying I was trying to teach these guys how to be militants, right? And they're absolutely correct. That's exactly what I was doing, uh, because I had guys in there who were gangsters, you know, uh the bloods, the cribs, the gangster disciples, the ninetas, and et cetera. So yes, I was trying to change their criminal mentality into a more uh socially uh acceptable revolutionary mentality, right? And so they looked, put me in the box, and at that time, um uh was in Southwest Confinement, and and oh uh note this, I got out of confinement following a lawsuit whereby the court reversed their disciplinary action, uh stating uh to to the uh um to the uh uh administrators, prison administrators, hey, this guy's actually teaching uh a college uh class here. You know, he's teaching real history. Uh so they reversed it, and I got out. But while I was in, I wrote to my my beloved comrade, uh Jihad Abdul Moumet, who had then become chairman of the uh, who was the chairman of the National Juridical Movement, organization that I started back in uh um uh uh 1998. And he was the chairman. I said, I told him, I said, listen, we need to bring the international jurors back to the United States, right? And he agreed, right? And he spoke to um uh my my beloved brother, a comrade, Sekuda Denga, whose t-shirt you see right here, switch ACC right here. Uh uh Secura Denga, uh, and people don't know the history of Seiku Denga, they should go and investigate the history of Seiko Denga. Uh, he was instrumental in the liberation of uh of uh uh Asala Shakur, right, and uh shepherding her into Cuba, right? He had trained with the PLO. Uh he had established the the um the Algerian uh headquarters of the Black Panther Party, helped establish that, and came back home and got back involved in the struggle. Uh he just transitioned a year and a half ago. Uh and so uh contacting Sekou, also contacted another dear comrade, a brother by the name of Matt Myers. And uh and Matt Myers, Sekou, and uh jihad said, yes, we will bring international judges back, but what we're gonna do, we're gonna bring them back under an international tribunal uh for uh we claim we we still uh um charge genocide, right? Uh and that was in October of 2021. And I was released and I was able to attend uh um at that event. Matter of fact, I testified at that event on the issues of political prisoner. Uh people can go to YouTube uh, or they can go to spirit ofnandela.org and find all of the hearings of the international tribunal. Find all the hearings of the international tribunal and uh and learn why they came to the decision they did. The international body, uh international esteemed body of international jurors, uh many who are members and or work with the United Nations and other international NGOs, uh determined on October 25th of 2021. The United States is in fact guilty of the charges of genocide against black, brown, and indigenous people on the virtue of five charges that we brought. The five charges was one, mass incarceration. We know that they mass incarcerated us, right? Two, state sanctioned violence against us, police killing us. They know we know that the police kill us across this country, right? Uh environmental racism. We know that many of our communities are in polluted territory, polluted areas. Uh uh, industrial parts, it used to be industrial parks, and et cetera, right? Uh, let's reason one of the reasons why we have the highest forms of diabetes, highest form of asthma, highest form of uh uh kidney ailments, uh liver ailments, you name it, uh black people, brown people in this country, we have it as a result of the conditions of uh our livelihood or the way we've been living and and corralled in certain enclaves, uh ghettos, slums, et cetera, right? Um environmental racism, um, health inequities. White people live longer than black people in this country, live longer than brown people in this country. Why is that? Uh, it's a question of health inequities and also the existence of political prisoners. And what the international jurors found accumulatively, right, these uh uh conditions uh countermine to genocides. Now, let me make this point explicitly clear. This is not the first time the charge of genocide has been raised against the United States. 70 years ago, the great W. D. Du Bois, some of you may have heard of him, the great William Patterson, some of you may have heard of him, the great Paul Robinson, some of you may have heard of him. On December 17, 1951, about two, three months after I was born, uh, they had brought the charge of genocide against the United States. And as a result of them bringing those charges, the FBI prevented Paul Robinson from going to Switzerland, to uh Geneva, Switzerland, to argue the petition, right? And they tried to prevent William Patterson from returning back to the United States. So we will accomplish what they were not able to do. We actually got a verdict from an international, we've seen by the international jurors, uh, determining that yes, the United States has, in fact, has been engaged in genocides against black, brown, and indigenous people. And also at this point, Al Haz Malik Sabas in uh his uh uh similar uh presentation speech, uh Message of the Grassroots, he stated then he felt that we are uh uh facing genocides. Uh uh Martin Luther King in his speech of The Other America stated that he felt that we are entering a system of genocides. So what we're finding is that throughout our history uh in this country, uh we have suffered these conditions. Now, let me also make this a point, especially. There's two other points I had to make. One is this, that genocides uh is not genocide as it is uh as it is written does not necessarily mean that they have to just wipe you off the planet, right? Uh uh as they did uh in World War II, or as they're doing in Gaza today, right, or in the Sudan, or as they're doing in in uh uh um other parts of Africa, right? Uh genocide can be a a in whole or in part, right? Let me see if I can read that for you right quick, uh, so people have a clearer understanding of what genocide is, right? The 1948 Convention of Genocide states one, right? Uh it means any falling acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part of the national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, such as one, killing members of the group. We know that it killed us, right? Or causing serious body or mental harm to the group, members of the group. We know that we are a traumatized people. In fact, we are a traumatized nation. Okay. Uh C, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical or of his physical destruction in whole or in part. That means you don't have to just wipe you out. They can diminish your capacity to prosper, your capacity to grow as a population, which we have done, what they're doing here. In fact, if you want to look at the census uh of black people in this country, we can see that in terms of growth and development, it's almost negligible. There's hardly any growth and development. In fact, other nationalities is growing at a higher rate than that of black people in this country. Okay. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group. The sterilization of our women, right, without their consent. Uh there's a there's a case in Chala prison uh making that f making that argument. But uh about 25 years ago, 30 years ago, uh the people in uh Puerto Rico, the women in Puerto Rico were being sterilized, uh wholesale being sterilized uh without their consent. And there's a big fight behind that. And forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. We know they did that with the indigenous, right? Moved them from their families, from their culture, and gave them to missionaries, right? Cut off their hair, took their language, changed their names, right? Removed them from their culture. That's genocidal, right? Now, in Article 2. Article 3 further states that the following shall be punishable. Genocide, a. Genocide is punishable. Conspiracy to commit genocide is punishable. Direct and public incitement to commit genocide is punishable. Attempt to commit genocide is punishable. And complicity in genocide is also punishable. Now the other point I want to make is this here. 18 USC 1091. 18 USC 1098. That's federal law, right? It's the United States' signature to the 1948 Convention on Genocide, right? And basically the same language of the Genocide Convention is the same language in this federal law. And we know for certain that the United States is not going to charge itself with committing a violation of its own federal law or international law. So it is up to us to do so. And that's what we did. We charged the United States with genocide because black brown does his people. They've been found guilty by an esteemed body of international jurors. And now we decided that based upon that decision, we have to figure out ways to remove ourselves from any future harm by this genocidal diabolical system of capitalist, racial capitalist, imperialism, racial capitalism and imperialism. And so we've decided that it's a necessity to have a national convergence of progressives from across the country on the basis of understanding the genocidal nature of this system and for us to figure out ways how to establish national and also international networks that will assist us in our capacity to survive this genocidal onslaught that we've been facing for over 400 years. And so that's where we would have this national mobilization against genocides in Atlanta, Georgia on July 4th, 2026. And we're calling all progressive forces. Now, let me make this point, right? In terms of progressive forces, we're asking to come, all right, we're asking you have to be anti-capitalist, you have to be anti-imperialism, you have to be anti-colonialism, you have to be anti-fascism, you have to be anti-patriarchy, right? And you have to be pro-liberation of the independence of poor and oppressed peoples, right? And if you, if your organization or as an individual, you support those goals, support those ideas, then you need to be in Atlanta on July 4th, uh, uh, 2026. We will not be celebrating uh uh uh the Independence Day uh from 1776, 2026, right? 250 years, we will not be celebrating uh uh the genocidal nature of this entity that they call the United States, whose true name is Torah Island. We will be uh uh celebrating a 250 years of resistance to a system of capitalist imperialism with fascism, right? And and ra and and uh and uh uh racial racial capitalism. Okay. That's our goal and objective. We're calling on all uh forces, uh progressive forces in the United States, uh in Torah Island to converge. We need to have the convergence. We need to have this broad discussion, uh, we need to develop networks uh across the country uh so that we'd be able to be able to uh uh uh uh exchange resources, right? Uh and and deal with all what is required of us in order to survive this madness, this this uh this growing onslaught of fascism uh that's going on in this country today. And with that I yield.
SPEAKER_02Juliel, I really appreciate you giving us not just a description of the event and and what we're aiming for here, but also the roots of the event and where it comes from, how it's grown out of this long process to bring us here. That's that's really helpful. It sounds right up DSA's alley. Sid, I'll I'll turn it over to you. Could you tell us why this event is something that should concern people in DSA and and and what this means to you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, of course. Uh so I I really think it's the point that Jaleel made about the history of charging the U.S. with genocide is very, very important to this entire story. I think we charge genocide, which is the text presented by Du Bois, Patterson, and Robison to essentially presented directly to the U.S. government, charging um Uncle Sam with genocide of black peoples of the United States, has, I think, unfortunately been forgotten by too many people. This idea that in the 1950s, as you know, as Black America was returning home from World War II, beginning to question this idea that the unfolding civil rights movement would necessarily lead to black liberation for all of us. I think we charged genocide was a really an important text for making an indictment of the entire American system at a time period when doing so was both incredibly unpopular in the mainstream and subjected people to incredible um repression at the hands of the state. And the idea that we are going to continue to define ghettoization, sterilization, um uh state violence as a form of genocide, I think is very relevant to a lot of the political work that DSA is doing, especially as we think about the ways that genocide is lived out. So, like before I move to thinking about the mobilization itself, like really uh I, a black kid grew growing up in rural Minnesota, not exactly a great place for me to grow up. And moving to New York and becoming a part of the fight against displacement and gentrification, revealed to me very quickly as I was organizing oftentimes sort of rather economistic and material demands, fair wages, rent stabilization, free health care, even fast and free buses. It was really remarkable how so many of our allies, especially black New Yorkers, especially folks in Bedsty, really saw this fight as frankly a fight against ethnic cleansing at the hands of property developers, real estate speculators, people that wanted to push black people out of Bedsty, out of Harlem, out of San Francisco, out of Oakland, out of everywhere, out of civic life, in a way that really, again, is simply defined as ethnic cleansing of black Americans from urban space. And I was really surprised that as I worked with a lot of white comrades who were engaged in these campaigns, really elevating their consciousness as radicals, as socialists became a lot more effective when it became very clear how the communities we were talking to were actually responding to these. I remember talking to one of our candidates is that like people are not experiencing this in their pocketbooks. People are experiencing this in their souls as capitalism is shredding every aspect of every aspect of community. And going back to this idea of various forms of genocide, I think may sound hyperbolic, but if you actually talk to the working class people that are building our movement, you see that same language over and over again. And I think that has primed a lot of us to turn to this mobilization and see: no, this ongoing indictment of the US state is going to be really important for building up our solidarity for a liberatory vision as we come to this convergence, right? The idea that the United States is in fact a genocidal empire, it continues to be unpopular, especially in this rah-rah political moment of celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But I think it's really important to return to our political roots and begin thinking about how we are going to continue to message against this. For me, DSA showing up to this event is our way of saying that the United States Empire needs to genuinely be resisted from within. It needs to be resisted solidaristically with the black and brown communities that have directly experienced this, and that we are going to need to come together as we collectively construct our new vision for statecraft. You have a lot of people talking about with this imperial war in Iran, the um the resistance of Iran to um this illegal war, and people and the fact that the oil is now being traded in Chinese-run MinB's and all of these other things going on, whether it's the BRICS Coalition, whether it's all of these geopolitical developments, and people are saying, aha, it is the end of American Empire. American Empire is declining because of all of these things that are happening in the world. And personally, I'm actually very skeptical of that. I don't know if these are signs of American imperial decline. If we want to actually decline the American Empire, I think we're going to have to do it here. It is going to be the internally colonized black and brown people of the United States who are going to be the ones that are presenting that vision for the world here. The United States is the really one of the only places where these racial contradictions are being so directly and violently confronted in the first world. We have internal colonies. We are the ones that are able to create this vision for global liberation because we have experienced these forms of genocide within our borders while we are nominally given the same rights as citizens as everyone else. We need answers, and DSA is the largest socialist organization in the United States. We have a functional and active and robust democracy. We need to be a space where we are coming up with those liberatory answers, because if not, that is a dereliction of duty. So I'm hoping to show up, I'm hoping to speak, I'm hoping to lead a workshop, because I think it's very important that we think about these things. The sin of the Declaration of Independence, the failures and undemocratic nature of the U.S. Constitution, how the three-fifths clause, the idea that black Americans would be counted as three-fifths of a person in the collect counting of electoral votes, but not actually be given the rights to vote. We need to be effectively talking about how that defined the political structures we have now so we can think and act new ones.
SPEAKER_00May I add a couple of points to that, right? Very, very, very good, Sid. I really appreciate uh your understanding or your understanding, DSA's understanding of the imperial nature of the empire. Uh and what you adequately stated, that the empire can be weakened by external forces, right? Uh history has proven that empires may be weakened by external forces, but empires are generally dismantled and collapsed when the people inside the empire say, no more, we're done. Right? Uh we just can't we just can't go any further with this uh this crime of this humanity uh that we call civilization. Uh uh and so for us, it's important that we uh take hold of that ideal that the world is waiting on us. I went to Venezuela, I went to Greece, and I took basically told them, right, uh uh in uh in the forums that I was in. You're not gonna be free until black people are free. Right? You're not gonna be free until black people are free. The world will not be free until black people are free, right? Why? Because we live in a world that's based upon this aberration of white supremacy all around the world. And anywhere you look in the world, you find black people, you find black people downtrodden, right? Then the lower half of anything, uh, the bottom rung of everything. And as a result of this aberrant idea that uh some people are superior than other people on this planet, as a species on this planet. And so for us to dismantle uh this system of uh racial capitalism, this system of uh of racial imperialism, because that's what it is, right? It's the Europeans of the world trying to dominate the people of color around the world and extract their resources and their labor, okay, uh uh for their own uh uh uh uh hoarding of wealth, okay. And so uh what we find uh as another example, but there are what 740, 750 billionaires in the United States, right, in a population of 330 million people, right? Uh and they control the planet for the most part, right? And we're complicit by our silence, right? Uh by our capacity to resist uh them extracting wealth from our labor, right, or the working class uh in the United States and in Total Island. And so for us to come to terms with that reality, it is essential that we also come to terms that we have power, right? And we have the power to dismantle this entity by just saying no. Good morning, we're not going for it anymore. We're done. We're done, right? And lock this, lock the system down. If they cannot extract wealth from us, then they can no longer govern. And and let me make this other point that you stated, uh Sid, that I do not necessarily agree in totality. Uh, you said that you do not believe that the empire is is uh being threatened uh uh um by the systems of um by by these struggles and these movements. Um I think the empire is becoming more fascist because they are being threatened, uh because that they see the the imploding uh uh uh of the capitalist system. Okay. And uh and therefore they have to try to resort to uh this this this uh fascist uh um uh repressive nature, right, of wholesale murder, wholesale killing uh of people, uh not only uh in outside the United States, but as you saw in Minnesota, they're now killing white people as they've been doing black people for centuries, right? Shooting them down in the middle of the streets, right in front of everyone, and getting away with it with impunity. Right? Well, this is what black people have been suffering, this is what indigenous people have been suffering, this is what brown people have been suffering for centuries, okay? So as Al Hajmali Shabazz wrote about the the murder of uh um JFK, right? It's the chickens coming home to roost, right? And they're coming home to roost because they're getting their asses kicked all over uh every place around the world, right? So there ain't no other place for them to come but come back here and try to resort what they call MAGA, right? Make America great again. Well then they mean by that is putting black people back in slavery, right? And resorting to those kinds of conditions. And that's not gonna happen. And so for us, it's important that we understand the nature of the empire, right? And the nature of the history of empire has been dismantled, right? And then and therefore we have to come to terms with the fact that if we want to end this system, then we're gonna have to do it ourselves, right? It's gonna have to be done by those who live within the system. Although the external forces may weaken it, it's gonna be us on the inside who's gonna dismantle it.
SPEAKER_02I think you both have have put it really well and really emphasized this idea of power, needing power. Um, and that this is a question of what we are going to do here in this country, uh, and how we are going to really turn this ship around, to say it mildly. I have here a famous uh uh quote from Martin Luther King Jr. about the Declaration of Independence, and I was hoping to propose it to both of you and hear your reflections on it. You've both have already shared a lot about what the Declaration of Independence uh means, doesn't mean uh how we should think about history. All the same. I I find this quote very evocative and and and wanted to hear y'all's response. So of course at at the Washington Memorial in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. calls the Declaration of Independence a promise that all men, and here I'm quoting him, yes, black men as as well as white men would be guaranteed the unalienable right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And King continues saying that it's obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked with insufficient funds, and King concludes, but we refuse to believe that the Bank of Justice is bankrupt. So I was hoping that you both could reflect on on that quote. Julia, could could could I start with you and and if those words speak to you, if you feel like they have power, um anything around that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um first of all, I I think uh at some point in time uh we can agree that Martin Luther King uh was delusional. Right, and his idea of assimilation and integration into the system. In fact, he came to a point where he's decided that uh perhaps he is ushering his people into a burning building, into a burning house. Uh, that's what began to change his thinking in regards to uh uh the concept and this idea of this experiment that we call America or the United States. Um indeed, uh I hold that uh his understanding of the Declaration of Independence is lacking a historical uh foundation, right? Um uh I don't think he knew that the the or if he did, he didn't mention it, that the Declaration of Independence or the writings of it came from the I think it was the Iroquois uh Federation, uh, that it was actually a document that came out of the uh a native, uh indigenous community, uh uh the language of it, the the the the the building of this federation, all right? Uh uh and and and and on the basis of that, um uh I think he he's uh uh lost in the sauce, okay, uh by believing that this declaration of independence has anything to do with black people from the onset, from the very beginning, when black people was considered to be three-fifths of a human being, right? Uh uh even you consider the fact that in 1877, when black men would have the opportunity to vote, right, give an opportunity, not women, but black men was given the opportunity to vote in 1877, which is what the 15th Amendment of the United States Constitution, right, um, why would then we have to have the Voting Rights Act, right, of uh 1964, 1965, which is now has been eroded uh to just be a piece of paper uh very much like the Declaration of Independence. So in my thinking, in my thinking in terms of uh uh his uh uh quoting that or referring to that being a promissory note, well, they have lied. They always lied towards the promise. Right? The promise is a lie. Okay. So when we understand that and that historical foundation of both the Declaration of Independence and what it means for black people in this country, right, it can be used as toilet paper and still get the same results.
SPEAKER_02I appreciate it, Jaleel and Sid, I'll turn it over to you. What what what uh what thoughts does does this quote stir up for you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, I really couldn't agree more here. Like the Declaration of Independence was it said one thing out loud and it said the other thing quietly, right? The thing that it said out loud was that King George and the British were restricting the lock-in, the Enlightenment rights of the American settlers to continue to pursue private property relations to how they saw fit. Now, what were private property relations? Those were the ability to expropriate indigenous land, create agrarian settlements, and continue the westward expansion of the American colony. Everything was going fine for them until they realized that more more and more restrictions on their ability to do that would be put forward. They also thought that Britain was going to take their slaves away. They were concerned by this. The many people have continued to debate whether or not that was actually going to happen in the near future. But certainly there was an experienced a hypothetical threat to slavery for many of the people who put their names on the Declaration of Independence. And that's always what it's been about to me, right? Is that the idea of the American founding is based in the idea of the creation of this empire. Of course it was a lie because it comes from the same enlightenment Lockean Hobbesian thought that the United States was in fact this um the shining example of the free the freedom of man, and I say specifically mankind, over nature, over the uncivilized black and brown people, over indigenous peoples of the of what is now the United States. It was always based in that to me and I think Martin Luther King was attempting to appeal to some of the better angels, but by the time he's giving that speech he's seeing people beaten in the streets of Birmingham, he's seen multiple failed movements across different cities in the South. That man was becoming cynical and you can really quickly see why he was so I don't think anything was anything anything was promised. And again the reason for that was because the creation of this and of this entity the creation of the United States was based on that particular economic system. At first it was growing tobacco later on it became growing cotton who's who was doing the growing that was the black people of the United States right and I think by the 1960s when we have this resistance whether it's through attempts to fight for equal representation whether it's a chance to fight for fair jobs you have all of these things coming together that are making people who are working within the system working within the grounds of the US Constitution very cynical about how it's going to work. When Martin Luther King is giving that speech he's constantly on the phone with whining senators and representatives who are getting prepared to say well we can't do anything because of the filibuster well we can't do anything because so and so so and so portions of the American government are controlled by these types of right wingers. And we can't do anything and we can't do anything. And I think the Declaration of Independence and the many documents that flowed from it the Federalist papers, the Constitution itself are all emblematic of trying to create a government that primarily exists to serve the owning class, specifically the plantation owning class and any attempt to engage with the political system that doesn't recognize that first and foremost, whether we're dealing with the cops, whether we're dealing with municipal offices, whether we're dealing with thinking about running for president any conversation about the political system that doesn't recognize who these documents were meant to serve is going to lead us in the wrong direction and probably lead us in circles.
SPEAKER_02I appreciate that response as well Sid and it's important to put that that speech that folks I'm sure know very well to put that in context and to think about what else was going on in in that moment. For the sake of time I'm going to bring us to the last question which is to ask for any closing thoughts and of course this isn't the end the conversation will continue. The event that we've been talking about is in two months so that's really what we're what we're what we're building towards here. But if folks have any closing thoughts and and Sid I'll turn it over to you for this one so that Julial we can we can end with you.
SPEAKER_03But but go ahead Sid Yeah I think for me really show showing up in Atlanta bringing more and more of my comrades to Atlanta for this mobilization is really meaningful to me because I think it really is going to allow us to think more deeply and critically about what black liberation has meant not just over the past the past hundred years, past 400 years, but even over the past six years since 2020 and the George Floyd uprising I think the idea that we collectively really do need to return to this abolitionist, to this black liberationist politics in all of our actions, all of our work is really important and being able to bring my comrades bring my comrades of all backgrounds, including uh including many black DSA members who don't necessarily come from these particular traditions into this conversation and think about what it means for us is going to be very important for recognizing exactly what the role of US empire is right we are we are an American society that does not like to conceive of itself as an empire right if we think about the tradition of American studies, the academic field of studying the United States it really the field existed and the field was actually fairly left-wing for significant portions of its existence but it really wasn't until the 1990s and the 2000s that the idea of American empire really entered that particular lexicon. Unfortunately it was the work of black and indigenous comrades largely left alone if you will to theorize on this without the support of other modes of thought. And returning to the idea that we in fact do have an American empire not just an overseas one not just one that experien that was uh that created the Iraq war not just an empire that continues to hold Puerto Rico, Guam and many other territories without any sort of political rights. It is an empire that has many colonies within our own borders that are completely stripped of political rights, completely stripped of places to do politics at all. And we are going to this mobilization as Julial said shortly after the Supreme Court nine unelected justices completely destroyed the voting the Voting Rights Act allowing for state governments to essentially pick their representatives and disenfranchise just about whoever they want and that normally means black people especially in southern states. And to be able to show up to this mobilization in Atlanta the the heart of the South and say no actually the system that allowed for nine judges to do this the system that allowed for six judges to do this is not one worth defending is not one worth supporting is going to be extremely important as we move through politics in the years to come. It's not just electoral politics it's not just street mobilizations it's not just tenant work. It's our ability to imagine a new epistemology for what a liberated black populace a liberated Turtle island populace is actually going to look like because the state has done a very effective job since 2020 in making sure we don't think about these things, forcing us to nibble around the edges, focus on small time policy gains, even focus on local struggles at the expense of building a nationwide program. The Panthers had a program. They fought for it. That's what is a huge part of what makes the legacy of Pantherism so powerful in the present day is because of the program and the ability to think through what our programmatic vision for this whole world is going to be is something that I think has been unfortunately very lost in the past 60 years. And these places where we're going to have a People Senate, when we're going to have these types of deliberative discussions, when we're going to have these workshops, are going to be the tools the American working class needs for that programmatic vision. And I really hope that folks who are listening to this people who are DSA members are going to show up in Atlanta and actually say this is the place where we are going to make these visions real.
SPEAKER_02I appreciate it Sid and I appreciate you encouraging us to think big uh and also tie in these these current events to the conversation as well. Jaleel I'll I'll turn it over to you to to send us home your your closing thoughts uh what what you'd like to leave us with.
SPEAKER_00Thank you again for this opportunity to share uh some understanding of what we're trying to uh accomplish here right historically accomplish here uh to create a a new vision for our future uh at one time when I was growing up I thought we're gonna have revolution in my lifetime right I have since matured and understand that it's generational right from one generation to the next right so I'm no longer fighting for myself I'm fighting for my great grandkids my grandkids right and for their future and it's important for us to collectively understand that we need to to envision what our future is going to look like. And it has to look as something strange to us right because what is familiar is harmful. What is familiar is deadly what is familiar is murderous. What is familiar is genocidal. So we have to create something that's opposite of that right we have to build a movement that has greater cooperation and unity. One of the things that I found in terms of our indoctrination in the system is that there's two particular things, right? And it's this capitalism cannot survive without individualism right capitalism cannot survive without competition. If we remove individualism from capitalism you don't have capitalism if we remove competition from capitalism you don't have capitalism. And so what is the opposite of that? Cooperation and unity. So our goal and agenda is to build greater cooperation amongst the most progressive forces that we have in this country right and in so doing build greater unity. But it also means that we have to go inside ourselves and purge ourselves what we've been indoctrinated with purge ourselves of individualism purge ourselves from opportunism purge ourselves from sectarianism purge ourselves from competition amongst the various organizations that we have across this country all right progressive organizations we have across this country. And so that is the the the ultimate objective of this is a purging right of capitalism from out of our systems and how we uh uh how we develop relationships with one another okay because as long as we have relationships that's based upon individualism or relations based upon competition right we're not going anywhere right they will continue to hold and have control so our goal is the objective is create new networks of cooperation new networks of unity right and in so doing we will build what we call a people senate right where the people will have control where the people will be able to decide what their future of their children will be all right and that's it right that's it there is nothing there's nothing more right for us right because what we're now having what we're now having engaged in particular for black and brown indigenous people uh in the last 500 years for the indigenous 400 years for African people in this country right has been murderous right has been genocidal right and we're saying enough is enough I mean well Jalilan said I really appreciate you both joining us on CLASS DSA's podcast and we've been talking about the spirit of Mandela coalition's national mobilization against genocide which is going to be held in Atlanta Georgia on July 4th 2026 and all the details for that event which I should say again is endorsed by DSA and hopefully DSA members will show up for the event all the details for that event will be in the show notes so if listeners uh would like to find those they can find those in the show notes also they can go to spiritofnandela.org spiritmandelaw and you can find all the information on there or they can even the uh international tribunal 2021 and find all of the hearings uh that that were held all the information the documents that was presented to the uh uh to the uh the to the international jurors you can learn who the international jurors were as well uh by by going to uh uh spiritmandel.org or going to youtube and and learning that information there uh and and also let me put this up we have a book will be soon be coming out will be available we'll have all the documents and all the information of the international tribunal uh pictures everything everything's right there so if people want really want to understand this this this uh uh this uh uh campaign uh uh this this historic uh uh development uh they'll have a a a book they can do the research on and reflect on on on the work that we've what we have thus far have accomplished and with the help of DSA and other organizations across this country uh we will indeed be successful we will okay we what what we do we'll be able to win awesome that's a great point to leave it on thank you both so much thanks as always to our guests and our production crew Emma Michael and Tim who put all of this together class is a podcast of DSA's National Political Education Committee or NPEC which works to expand the knowledge of DSA members and non-members in the service of winning the struggle for socialism and democracy.
SPEAKER_02You can find out more about MPEC by searching for us online or following us on social media but the best way to find out what our committee is up to is by signing up for Red Letter, MPEC's monthly newsletter and if you aren't already you can become a DSA member by following the link in the podcast description. Okay, until next time Solidarity
