The world is quite literally spinning faster for working class people. Not only are we forced to cower under the fierce thumb of capitalism, but we are emotionally propagandized to encourage our pacification. We are trapped in a cannibalistic system which profits off the international rhythm of our misery.
The drums? A rat-tat-tat lack of housing, food, clean water, and general security. COVID killing more of us than them. Streams of misinformation about monkeypox and about Omicron BA.4? 5? Whichever number it is, their “descendant lineages,” threaten our survival daily.
Imagine that! A mutating force has more of a chance of generational survival than the people. And for them, that’s okay. We are simply desolate pawns in their vicious game. Year after year, the derisive victors eagerly empty our swiss-cheesed pockets and drown our miserable existences in the name of capital.
We are in the midst of a custody war for our collective future and for our collective consciousness. Not only are we ensnared by rampant disease, but there are also targeted attacks against our fights for land justice, climate justice, reproductive health, and overall human dignity.
This is a careful calculation. They know we’re too tired to fight back. We are the overworked and the underpaid. We are the overrepresented and the misunderstood. Who has the time to stand up? Those who are committed to doing so, are actively surveilled and subject to brutalization and suppression.
Last week at 5 am, the FBI illegally attacked Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party in St. Louis, Missouri. According to Yeshitela, the agents illegally restrained him and his wife, deployed flashbang grenades, carried automatic weapons, and damaged his neighbors’ property. They also raided their home and stole cellphones and other communication devices.
The FBI has also been urged by fascists to investigate Carlos Lazo, founder of Puentes de Amor, an organization actively working to ensure the United States ends their inhumane, 60 year economic blockade against Cuba.
This is not a coincidence. These groups and individuals are representative of the fact that the grip of the elite is swiftly slipping. While these political billionaires’ geopolitical interests and desires to maintain global domination is the backing force behind the state-sanctioned violence, which primarily targets African and Indigenous people, it is their arrogance that will be their downfall. Their foolish actions are what Black Alliance for Peace aptly calls a “ hysterical response to the United States’ loss of legitimacy in the context of the deepening crisis of capitalism and U.S. global hegemony.”
An attack on any organization fighting against imperialism, capitalism, racism, war, xenophobia, homophobia, and any other forms of oppression is an attack on us all.
But why are they surveilling the downtrodden—the colonized people? Surely they don’t fear the same ones whose bodies piled up to fill the coin purses of leperous Founder Fathers? Surely not the same souls whose rape, murder, and enslavement contributed to the grand design of their elaborate schemes? The same souls who did and still do not benefit from a system birthed from the bastardization of land, identity and culture?
There is deep and irreconcilable irony in a billionaire’s “you won’t break my soul” echoing loudly across global consciousness, while the puppet-masters of fascism amplify it through the platforms, stations, and systems they own, all in desperate efforts to drown the haunting sounds of our shattering bones.
Oh, the pure pleasure they derive from our pain! They revel in these illusions of progress!
Yesterday, federal charges were brought against four detectives involved in the police murder of Breonna Taylor. The charges reflect a deep violation of civil rights, unlawful conspiracies, and unconstitutional use of force and obstruction. It’s actually scandalous. Like some Investigation Discovery type-shit.
Charges are always brought against a few to pacify us. The United States of America, which has a $778 billion dollar fund for military violence and intervention, is a hegemonic killing machine designed to murder the proletariat—in other words, the people.
The United States is suffering from a discordant personality crisis. These charges are being brought under the same government that just agreed to fund 100,000 additional police officers based on vague explanations of “public trust and safety.” This, all while co-opting the language of grassroots organizations in efforts to further confuse the working class people.
These charges are brought in the same system that boasts a $778 billion dollar budget for military violence and intervention. This ongoing investment in violence is simply the elite of the United States of America paying tithes and offerings to their gods, their capital.
All of these acts, including the federal charges, are just another shuck and jive in a system actively encouraging and justifying violence against Black people on a daily basis.
“In 12 states, more than half the prison population is Black: Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Seven states maintain a Black/white disparity larger than 9 to 1: California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Wisconsin.”
Why are they so afraid of us? We are the resisters! We are steps outside of the status quo! We are the threat to mass complacency and global stability. We are hecklers in the audience of a carefully rehearsed show that has lasted for hundreds of years. Show time is up.
Our power shakes them back to the September nights near the Stono River, where enslaved Black people murdered their oppressors and called out for liberty. This is why it is so important for them to hide examples of the truth in Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. This is why it’s so important for them to delegitimize the agency of nations and people. This is why they fail to address the disgusting forms of political violence that suppress our voices and abilities to commune. This is why they fear a united African continent.
We have the ability to intensify and deepen these class conflicts. We have the ability to organize and lead working class struggles against this patriarchal, fascist, and inhumane subjugation of the people.
If we find out about the structure of society outside of these imaginary borders, it might inspire us to act and live more passionately. If we find out education and healthcare can be free, we might want some of that for ourselves. If they find out that we know about all the money they gave to befriend Neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine, but still have the nerve to ask us for that student loan money back… we might make a little fuss. If they knew we knew that they actively risked our lives to whip out their shriveled members just to deepen their colonial exploitation—what would they do?
Now is the time to get involved in organizations who are part of the movement for self-determination and the dismantling of racism, a structural and ideological component of capitalism. It’s time to use your energy as a community, to avoid burnout and persecution. Take care of and defend one another!
They have access to our searches, our browsing data, and more. They know where we sleep, what we eat, and how we move. What do you know about them?
Despite disease, famine, and active destruction of our livelihood, we are still here. They yank us up towards false illusions of liberty and justice, while continuously lining their pockets with our blood. We are here, and this simply means, we are able to stand up and do something about this. This unsustainable and criminal system of capitalism and imperialism will not last.
We can and will be liberated from this malicious figment of freedom.
After all, there are more of us than there are of them. It’s time we settle the score.
About Shaquille Fontenot
Shaquille Fontenot (Shuh-quil Fawn-te-no) she/her/they/them is an anti-imperialist communications strategist, educator, cultural worker, and plant-based chef. Shaquille currently serves as Chief Strategy Officer at Cedar Wolf Media Group, and is co-founder of the Lowcountry Action Committee (LAC), a Black-led grassroots organization dedicated to Black liberation through service, political education, and collective action in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. The Lowcountry Action Committee is also a member of the National Network on Cuba, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, the Black Alliance for Peace, Charleston Climate Coalition, and others. Shaquille is also a founding member of the People’s Budget Coalition and the Lowcountry Black and Hispanic Coalition. She serves the National Network on Cuba as a task force member.
Comments