Carl Dix Speaks To Youth on the Murder of Aiyana Jones

Carl Dix Speaks to the Youth On the Murder of Aiyana Jones

Everybody’s talking about crime - But who are the real criminals.

I was in Detroit for the funeral of Aiyana Jones. The police murdered this 7yr old girl, and then they treated her family like they were criminals, arresting her grandmother and making her father lay face down in his daughter’s blood. These pigs acted with wanton disregard for the lives of this Black family. A determined struggle for justice for Aiyana is needed in the face of this outrage.

The authorities in Detroit are blaming Aiyana’s family for the murder their pigs committed. They say the cop’s gun went off accidentally when her grandmother struggled with the cop. And they say Aiyana’s family put her in harm’s way by shielding the guy the cops were after.

Even if any of this were true, it wouldn’t justify what they did to Aiyana. They threw a grenade into a house they knew kids lived in, and they ran into the house guns drawn AND shooting. Are they saying it’s legitimate to kill children if they get between them and somebody they’re after? Are they saying they can be judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one?

Moreover, these pigs are lying. The guy the cops had the warrant for lived in the apt upstairs, over top of Aiyana’s home. The pigs ran into the wrong place and blew away a little girl. There’s a video of what happened that night. The lawyer for Aiyana’s family has seen the video, and he says it proves the cops are lying. The cops have the video and have refused to let it be shown. If that video backed up the cops’ story, it’d be all over the TV.

Now a lot of people are saying Aiyana’s murder was caused by the culture of crime and violence in Detroit – that because Black youth are killing each other, the cops have to operate like they do. The Detroit police chief said people concerned about what happened to Aiyana have to do more snitching to the cops. At Aiyana’s funeral, Rev Sharpton, who did the eulogy, said, “I’m going to start looking at the man in the mirror. We’ve all done something to contribute to this.” – referring to Aiyana’s death.

This is pure poison. It comes down to blaming the masses for the shit the system enforces on them. Look, I’m not naive. I know the youth are into some bad shit – gangs, crime and drugs; killing each other and preying on the people. But who’s responsible for all this? The capitalist system. The system has sucked the jobs out of the ghettos, moving them ½ way across the world where they can exploit people even more viciously. The system has created schools that are like prisons. Our youth have no legitimate way to survive and raise families. They face futures of prison, the military, or early graves. Even a mainstream economist has said crime is a rational choice for the youth, the best one they can make under the circumstances.

Anybody who wants to do something about crime and violence has to target what’s responsible for all this – the capitalist system.

Now, I want to speak to the youth, youth out there with their defiant attitudes and sagging pants, youth who are in gangs and involved in the underground economy trying to make it or earn some respect.

Look I know the system offers you no future. Unleashing pigs to beat you down, dragging you into court where no one is on your side, framing you up on BS charges and throwing you in jail even if you’ve done nothing wrong. I know they say your lives are worthless, and this has scarred you deeply, physically and emotionally. I know the impact that watching your families lose jobs and homes, seeing your fathers locked up or missing from your lives can have.

I get why you’re angry, why you don’t want to play by the system’s rules, why you’re impatient and want to fight. But answer me this – are you going to let this system, the very system that put you in this situation, keep on playing you? Are you going to keep swallowing and spitting back out their message, that you’re nothing but a criminal, an animal out to kill or be killed? Are you going to keep on being a tool for this system, doing dirty work that serves its interests, killing each other and preying on the people? Or joining their military to go off to do the same shit for them in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Or are you going to cast off what they say about you and prove them wrong. Are you going to rise above what this system has put on you, not by getting on your knees and praying to a non existent god. That won’t ease your conscience or stop the never ending nightmares you see happening around you every day.

What you gotta do is get out of the shit you’re into and get into the revolution. Refuse to become what the system is trying to make you into. Take the rage that burns within you, rage that is completely justified, and direct it where it needs to be. Become a fighter for the revolution, an emancipator of humanity. You have heart and a brain – use them to get into this revolution. Spread the message of this revolution, that things don’t have to be this way, that thru revolution we could end the way the police brutalize and even murder people, end the wars this system inflicts on the world, end the way the great majority of humanity is forced to endure poverty and misery while a handful live in obscene wealth. Grapple with the questions involved in making revolution and building a new society that could meet people’s needs and deal with the problems we face.

Use your rage to stand up against the outrages this system brings down on people here in the US and around the world. Like the cold blooded murder of Aiyana Jones and all the other people these pigs have murdered.

The days when the system can just keep on doing what it does to people here and all over the world, when people aren’t inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages, and to build up the strength to end this madness, those days must be gone, and they can be.

Make your life about something that really matters, not just for yourself and those around you, but for all of humanity. Do something to get rid of this system that has robbed you and all the people of this planet of lives worthy of human beings.

The choice is yours. Are you gonna continue to let this system play you, are you going to end up in an early grave or in prison or a mindless killer in their military? Or are you going to rise above it, getting with the revolution, waking other people up, shaking them out of their silence and passivity, helping jump off a new stage of revolution.

This system has no future for you. But the revolution certainly does.

Get with the revolution.

From Detroit: Carl Speaks After the Funeral of Aiyana Jones on Resistance & Revolution

Statement on Aiyana Jones Murder by Detroit Police

My name is Carl Dix and I’m with the Revolutionary Communist Party and I have something to say about the police murder of 7 year old Aiyana Jones in Detroit this week.

The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world… when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness… those days must be GONE. And they CAN be.

Aiyana Jones was sleeping in her own home when she was burned with a stun grenade thrown through her window by Detroit police and then shot in the head and killed by police.

Don’t tell me this was an accident that couldn’t have been avoided—they threw a stun grenade into a home, burning Aiyana while she slept. Then they fired the bullet that killed Aiyana while they were still on the porch outside. All this happened despite the fact that Aiyana’s cousin, Mark Jones, was outside pleading with them that there were children inside.

Don’t tell me the cops were remorseful over Aiyana’s death— they made her father, Charles Jones, lay face down in broken glass and in his little girl’s blood, all the while lying to him, telling him Aiyana was OK. Then they arrested the grandmother, and when they took her for a drug test, they PUT HER IN CHAINS.

Don’t tell me this is just “one bad apple” – because after this murder, the police department started lying to cover it up. They cooked up a lie that the murdering cop’s gun went off by accident and blamed this on the alleged resistance of Aiyana’s grandmother, Mertilla Jones.

Don’t tell us to be patient until all the facts come out -- it turns out the cops who killed Aiyana had pointed his gun at a 2 year old girl several years earlier and he hasn’t been punished for that outrage.

Don’t tell us to wait patiently while the cops investigate and find out what happened—the cops are spreading lies about how this happened and trying to cover up the truth. A TV crew was filming the police while all this happened, and the cops confiscated the film and haven’t let anyone see it.

Don’t tell us to wait for the federal government to come in and investigate this—cops have killed innocent people again and again, in Detroit and all across the country. Whether the feds come into the cases or not, these murdering pigs almost always get away without any punishment.

People in Iraq and Afghanistan have faced the same thing that was perpetrated on Aiyana's family. Night time raids, stun grenades, family members killed. This is standard procedure for the US military too--shock and awe. What kind of system is this that perfects this kind of procedure and carries it out against people all over the world, again and again.

There's been rivers of tears and oceans of blood. Why do we have to live in a society where cops can brutalize and murder people and get away with it? Why do we have to live in a society where people can work hard all their lives and do everything they're supposed to, and then see their homes taken away from them because of the workings of capitalism's financial system? Why do we have to live in a world where billions of people live on the edge of starvation, dealing with misery and disease while a handful live in obscene wealth?

We don't. Things don't have to keep going down like this. Things don't have to be this way.

It is this capitalist system that has got us in the situation we are in today, and keeps us there. And it is through revolution to get rid of this system that we ourselves can bring a much better system into being. The ultimate goal of this revolution is communism: a world where people work and struggle together for the common good… Where everyone contributes whatever they can to society and gets back what they need to live a life worthy of human beings… where there are no more divisions among people in which some rule over and oppress others, robbing them not only of the means to a decent life but also of knowledge and a means for really understanding, and acting to change, the world.

And look, if you’ve heard bad things before about communist revolution – that’s just more of this system’s lies. The fact is, when we have state power, we can crfeate a totally different and far better society for people to live in. When we are leading a new revolutionary society, our public safety officers would sooner take a bullet themselves then kill or injure an innocent person and that is just the beginning.

This revolution is real. We have the leadership we need in Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party. And right now we are building a movement for revolution. Fighting the power and transforming the people for revolution.

Get with the revolution!

What future does this system have to offer our youth? Being blown away by some trigger happy cop? Being trapped in ghettos and barrios that have been stripped of jobs and opportunity? Having little in the way of legitimate ways to survive and raise families? This system has no future for our youth, but the revolution certainly does.

Don't tell us about crime and gangs--It's your system that's really criminal.

Don't tell us about being patient and not to get angry--this has gone down again and again. We're right to be angry and we should express that anger.

Little Aiyana is dead, and the cops are lying about it to cover up their foul murder. We don't want to or need to hear their phony apologies or watch them shed crocodile tears. Come out to her funeral, show her, her family and oppressed youth all over the world some love. Protest her outrageous murder. And join the movement for revolution!

The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world… when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness… those days must be GONE. And they CAN be.

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Video Statement: Condemn the Mass Murder of Iraqi Civilians

12 Iraqi Civilians Murdered By US Troops Firing From Apache Helicopter

THIS MASS MURDER MUST BE ROUNDLY CONDEMNED!



The video recently released by Wikileaks cries out for a response of outrage and condemnation. (You can view this video at Wikileaks.org.) This video shows US forces in Iraq launching an unprovoked assault from an Apache Helicopter on a group of Arab men in July of 2007. After the attack one of the men he tries to crawl to safety, and the helicopter fires at him again! Then a van pulls up and tries to pick up the dead and wounded, and the helicopter fires a missile at it, killing and wounding more people, including 2 children! US ground troops arrive and pick up the children to take them to a hospital. The helicopter relays orders to leave the children to be picked up by Iraqi police, if they survive till the Iraqi police arrive. In all, 12 people were killed in this murderous assault.

The initial US response to complaints over this assault was: "There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in a fire fight with hostile forces." "The actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the rules of engagement." And "No innocent civilians were killed on our part deliberately. Our forces took great pains to prevent that. We did everything we could to help them. We don't know how the children were hurt." These are all lies aimed at keeping those who did not witness the assault in the dark about what really happened.

Two of the men attacked were carrying cameras, and none carried weapons of any kind. No one took any hostile action against the US forces, even after the unprovoked assault. The soldiers in the helicopter acknowledged that the people in the van were picking up bodies right before they fired a missile at them. And in the video you can clearly see that the children in the van before the helicopter fired at it.

This was mass murder carried out at a safe distance, firing at people who were in no way threatening the US forces. And the soldiers were calm and upbeat as they went about this murderous deed in a callous and uncaring way. They lie that the men have weapons and have fired at them and joke as they kill people for no good reason! Another thing that stands out is how eager they are to kill. They plead several times, "Let us shoot," as they await the OK to kill the defenseless people below them. When someone in the helicopter says they have wounded children, another soldier replies, "It's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle!"

The statement that the troops' actions were in accordance with the rules of engagement only serves to underscore that the war in Iraq Afghanistan are unjust and immoral. As does the reported response to the leaking of the video. Craig Considine writes that a secret report from the Army Counterintelligence Center, also leaked by Wikileaks, says, "Wikileaks represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security and information security threat to the US Army." This report also suggests that those responsible for leaking this report be hunted down and prosecuted.

I’m a Vietnam era veteran and war resister from inside the US army. This assault brought back bitter memories. Of the My Lai massacre, where US soldiers murdered several hundred Vietnamese villagers and burned down their village. Of US warplanes bombing irrigation facilities in farming areas and dropping napalm on defenseless villagers. Of earlier cover ups and lying justifications. Of attempts to prosecute those who exposed war crimes, not those who ordered or carried them out.

None of this--the murderous assault or the official response should surprise anyone. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are unjust, immoral wars, wars in which whole cities like Falluja have been flattened, in which wedding parties have been bombed at least 6 times! And the US has perpetrated war crimes like these since its very beginning, a beginning which has at its foundation genocide against the native inhabitants and theft of their land. This is why the Revolutionary Communist Party says in its Statement, The Revolution We Need ... The Leadership We Have that this capitalist/imperialist system "brings horror upon horror, a nightmare seemingly without end, for the vast majority of humanity ... wars, invasions and occupations ... assassinations and massacres ... planes, missiles, tanks and troops of the USA bombarding people in faraway lands while they sleep in their homes or go about their daily lives, blasting their little children to pieces, cutting down men and women in the prime of life, or in old age ..."

Everyone with an ounce of conscience needs to think about this latest outrage perpetrated by this rotten system. Think about the 12 people killed in this unprovoked, murderous assault. Think about the 2 children who were severely wounded. Think about the sense of loss this caused for their loved ones and friends. Think about all this, and respond to it with outrage and condemnation, and with a sense of urgency.

--Carl Dix

-30-

Tavis Smiley’s “The Black Agenda is the American Agenda”

Friends,

I’ve had a busy month, and I wanted to drop you a note about one part of that month—Tavis Smiley’s “The Black Agenda is the American Agenda” event in Chicago on March 20th. This event came out of a dispute between Tavis and Rev Al Sharpton, among others, over whether President Obama needed to have, or even to address, a Black agenda. This event focused on an important question, one that is up for large numbers of people in this country. That question is, how to assess Obama’s 1st year plus in the White House? To be blunt, do we need to give “the brother” more time to affect the kind of changes needed, or is the oppression of Black people runs so deep in this society that Obama couldn’t do anything about it if he wanted to? I’ll speak to this question in a minute.

Tavis’ panel of 11 notable Black people contained an array of divergent views. Angela Blackwell-Glover felt that the Black agenda was clear, and Obama was quietly working on it, tho’ she wished he’d be more vocal about that. From the other end, Cornel West felt that the cabinet and advisors Obama had surrounded himself with and the failure to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan pointed to a failure to act for change. Dorothy Tilghman urged people to get active, “to mobilize people to speak out for the things they need, just like other groups do.” Julianne Malveux felt that the depth of the conditions faced by Black people underscored the urgent need for an approach directly geared to these problems. Louis Farrakhan said that Obama had been selected to sit in the White House to represent white interests. Michael Eric Dyson went so far as to say, “Obama is not Moses. He’s Pharaoh!”

Despite this diversity of views, there was an overall framework that all the speakers stayed within, and I think this is framework is one that needs to be broken out of. That framework was that the way to work to end, or at least ease, the oppression Black people face is within the confines of this system. This approach limits people to working to pressure those with the power to do something about the problems they face.

The problem with this approach is that the oppression of Black people and all the other problems people face today around the world are built into the very fabric of the imperialist system we live under. Staying within the confines of the system means putting up with these problems and working to lessen them.

But things don’t have to be this way! We could end the oppression of Black people, the wars for empire, the oppression of women, the starvation and disease, everything foul people endure today thru revolution. All this is why we in the Revolutionary Communist Party are involved in a campaign centered on broad distribution of the statement, “The Revolution We Need … The Leadership We Have.” The goals of this campaign are to put revolution back on the map in this country, introduce people to the leadership we have for this revolution in Bob Avakian and to mobilize a core of people who are clear on the need for revolution and are determined to fight for it.

Had I been on this panel, all this would have been injected into the discourse. The 4000 plus people who attended this event, must of whom were in their seats in the auditorium when it began at 8 AM sharp, would’ve heard a radically different alternative to staying within the channels the system puts out there. Which is something I think is critically needed today.

I’ll write more on the other things that have taken me from DC to LA to Chicago and back to NY soon. Anyone who wants to get more info on Tavis’ event in Chicago should go to the web site: www.tavistalks.com.

Carl

Overturn the Ban of Revolution Newspaper!

Revolution #196, March 28, 2010

Pelican Bay State Prison, CA and Menard Prison, IL:
Overturn the Ban of Revolution Newspaper!
End the Political Censorship and Thought Control at Prisons Nationwide!

Along a remote stretch of California’s spectacular coast line 13 miles south of the Oregon border, sits Pelican Bay State Prison. 3,400 inmates are locked up in this super-max prison. 1,200 of these inmates are incarcerated in the Security Housing Unit (SHU), a notorious isolation unit. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, these prisoners don’t see beyond the hallways of their cells.1

The Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) provides subscriptions to Revolution newspaper to over 45 inmates at Pelican Bay. Each paper is shared with other prisoners. As one subscriber from Pelican Bay wrote, “I been getting the Revolution newspaper for about 8 years and can’t imagine being in this dungeon without it.”

Revolution newspaper is a lifeline for these prisoners.

In February 2010, Pelican Bay State Prison authorities issued formal notification to RCP Publications that Revolution newspaper is contraband and is therefore banned from that prison altogether. No subscriber will be allowed to receive Revolution. According to the PRLF, the prisoners were not notified until February 2010 that newspapers from as far back as October and November 2009 and all subsequent issues had been confiscated. Meanwhile, another letter from a prison official in California’s Chuckawalla Valley State Prison indicates the ban could be instituted in the rest of the state prison system.

Over the last few years incidents of the paper being withheld from prisoners have been increasing across the country. But this transparently political ban at Pelican Bay prison, with its significant number of subscribers, is a major escalation in the suppression of Revolution newspaper. For over 20 years, the PRLF has made revolutionary literature available to prisoners, including in California. Now the authorities slam the door shut on Revolution reaching its subscribers.

This ban at Pelican Bay (and any other prison) must be overturned. It is illegal, unconstitutional and immoral.

Revolution, and the Revolutionary Worker before it, has been going into Pelican Bay Prison for decades. So why now is it being banned?

To understand this, one must go back to July 2009. At that time, the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, issued a message and call and launched a major campaign: “The Revolution We Need... The Leadership We Have.” As a part of this, Joe Veale wrote a public letter to prisoners encouraging them to correspond, to speak to the youth who are trapped in dog-eat-dog ways of thinking and acting... and broadly to others, including in the middle strata. Veale called on them to move, inspire and win many, many people to the cause of revolution and to recognize the rare and precious leader we have in Bob Avakian.

And in the summer and fall of 2009, there was a flourishing of letters from prisoners. Three examples of this correspondence, from Pelican Bay and other dungeons, are in the accompanying article. It was clear this statement, and the campaign which it launched, had struck a chord in the hearts of these prisoners.

But that’s not all.

These letters and more were printed in the pages of Revolution and posted on the Internet. The voices of men and women who brave what might seem to be insurmountable odds to speak out from the dungeons where America has locked them up and locked them down were being heard broadly in society. These voices were having a profound effect on those who were listening. These are human beings who refuse to be destroyed, mentally and physically—and who grapple with the biggest questions of the revolution. Prisoners put pen to paper in order to communicate with the world.

Hundreds attended benefits for the PRLF which featured dramatic readings of these letters by a range of professional actors. And still more broadly, people from all strata have read these letters and responded, including with donations. No one should underestimate the impact it can have—and what it means—for people of all sections of society to read and hear what these prisoners are writing. As one Black woman who came to a benefit for the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) said, “This is amazing. The prisoners are so smart and thoughtful and write so well. These are our people saying these beautiful things. It gives me hope.”

Then, in fall 2009, Revolution announced there would be a special issue of the paper focused on prisons and prisoners. (Special Issue on Prisons and Prisoners in the U.S: From the Hellholes of Incarceration to a Future of Emancipation, Revolution #183, November 15, 2009) It contained analysis, both from prisoners as well as regular writers for the paper. At the heart of it was a powerful centerfold with a passage of Bob Avakian’s talk, Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About (available at revolutiontalk.net), which took off from the horrible, dog-eat-dog conditions in prison to show that, yes, another world is indeed possible... and that the wretched of the earth have a central role to play in it. This issue we now know never reached a significant number of prisoner subscribers, especially at Pelican Bay.

And the Ban Comes Down

The letter banning Revolution newspaper from Pelican Bay State Prison in California read, “This letter is to advise you that your weekly periodical ‘Revolution’ will not be delivered to inmates housed at Pelican Bay State Prison. Your periodical newspaper has been determined to be contraband because it ‘promotes disruption and overthrow of the government and incites violence to do so....’”

Disapproval notifications sent to prisoners in February 2010 stated the reason for banning issues of the newspaper as far back as October 2009 was “Incites racial violence and promotes governmental anarchy.”

The ban at Pelican Bay is an egregious act of political suppression based on the content of the newspaper. The discussion of revolution found in the pages of the newspaper is well known and undisputedly constitutionally protected speech measured by Supreme Court decisions on this over the last 50 years.

Who Promotes Racial Violence... And Who Promotes Unity in Struggle Across Racial and National Lines?

The other pretext for the ban—that Revolution newspaper promotes “racial violence”—has no credibility. One prisoner commented, “First off what racial group in particular are they speaking of? In other words to which audience is the paper targeting to incite racial violence when the fact is prison officials are basically the architects of racial disharmony among prisoners.”

Countless letters from prisoners who read Revolution demonstrate it is an invaluable tool in reaching across divisions by nationality and forging of multi-national unity among the prisoners:

I’m currently in one of the three SHU’s in California. I can’t imagine any deeper, darker, or more desolate pits in the U.S. than these.... The SHU “just so happens” to be where they isolate and slam down the most progressive, revolutionary, intelligent and indomitable elements of the prison population. When, by word of mouth or by my political activity on the tier, these cats learn I’m a communist revolutionary with revolutionary literature available for all regardless of race, groups, etc. a lot of them are interested in taking advantage of this opportunity to use this literature....

Let’s talk about who actually has a well-documented history of inciting racial violence. The prison system, especially in California, foments widespread gang and racial clashes as a means to divide and conquer the prisoners and then uses this as a rationale for more repression, brutality and torture against the prisoners. For instance, at the Corcoran SHU in California, the guards literally instigated gladiator type fights—they would take prisoners and whip them into a frenzy against each other, put them in pens and then release them out to fight each other, sometimes to the death.

The Ban Must Go!

A prisoner at Pelican Bay wrote about the ban on Revolution newspaper:

I am...offended by their notion that they are “cultivators” of my mind, that they “water” my mind with their approved books and approved reading and I will “grow” to be an “approved crop” instead of a weed.

We can not let the ban on Revolution stand. A mass and massive political and legal struggle must be mounted to overturn the ban at Pelican Bay. And let’s meet this challenge with the aim of not only overturning the ban—but geometrically spreading Revolution behind prison walls and the words of these revolutionary minded prisoners out into society. Revolution newspaper calls for support for the work of the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund. People can contribute to the fight against the censorship in many ways: raising awareness and funds, developing networks of support, dramatic readings of the prisoners’ letters. The ban must be challenged at Pelican Bay and at other prisons as well, like Menard prison in Illinois (where authorities have placed Revolution newspaper on their “banned literature” list.)

Taking on and waging the struggle against this ban can also contribute, very strongly, to achieving the goals of the campaign, to putting communist revolution, as it has been reconceived by Bob Avakian, on the map in this society; to broadly make known in this society the leadership of Avakian—giving people a sense of and building support for the work he is carrying out, his history and character as a rare and outstanding communist leader… and through strengthening the core of the revolutionary movement and the party that is leading it.

1. NPR, Laura Sullivan, July 26, 2006, “At Pelican Bay Prison, a Life in Solitary” [back]

What You Can Do

Support the work of the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (info below; 773‑960‑6952).

Donate! And raise money for the struggle to overturn the ban on Revolution.

Take part in the struggle against the ban: Spread the word about the ban and the struggle against it, develop networks of support, organize dramatic readings of the prisoners’ letters, and in many other creative ways.

Lawyers and others in the legal arena: Help in legal challenges against the ban on Revolution newspaper at Pelican Bay and at other prisons.

Meet this challenge by spreading Revolution behind prison walls and the words of these revolutionary-minded prisoners out into society.

Sunday March 21st 4pm Carl Dix Speaking at Chicago's Revolution Books

One Year Into the Age of Obama
THE INTENSIFYING OPPRESSION OF BLACK PEOPLE, CONTINUING CRIMES OF THE SYSTEM AND THE REVOLUTION WE NEED!

Come to Revolution Books Chicago and dig into why the change many people hoped for with the election of Obama in reality were false dreams.

Talk with Carl Dix, a representative of the RCP and a longtime revolutionary from the 60's. Last summer, Carl and Cornel West held an historic event in Harlem attended by 750 people on the theme "The Ascendancy of Obama ... and the Continued Need for Resistance and Liberation.". Let's talk about the very real and intensifying oppression of Black People in the age of Obama... and about the RCP's campaign to put revolution back on the map in this country and introduce people to the leader we have for this revolution in Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.

Chicago Revolution Books, 1103 North Ashland, Chicago, IL 60622 773/489-0930
http://chicagorevolutionbooks.blogspot.com/

Carl Dix: Women's Liberation, Black Manhood & Total Revolution!

Remarks by Carl Dix, March 6, 2010 at IWD Dinner at La Pregunta Cafe

Russia Today: From Buffalo Soldier to Revolutionary Communist

March 4, 2010

Carl Dix is interviewed by Russia Today about the "From Buffalo Soldier to Revolutionary Communist" Tour.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Steve (NYC) 917-868-6007 or Brian (D.C.) 832-922-2754
yipzzz@gmail.com or peac.howard@gmail.com

From Buffalo Soldier to Revolutionary Communist

VIETNAM-ERA VETERAN BRINGS REVOLUTIONARY MESSAGE TO HOWARD UNIVERSITY

Date and Time: March 4th, Thursday, 7:30 PM
Location: Locke Hall Room 105, Howard University

In a time of war abroad, economic dislocation and continuing oppression in the US, Carl Dix is coming to Washington, D.C., and he's on a mission. On March 4th, Carl will speak at Howard University on the theme of "From Buffalo Soldier to Revolutionary Communist." Carl will deliver 2 challenges and talk about the real way out of the madness the country and the world is confronted with today.

Carl challenges anyone in the ROTC, the American Legion, the VFW and anyone else who believes the war in Afghanistan is, as President Obama has called it, "a good war," to come out and make that case. He also warns any takers that they better come armed with facts and analysis because he's going to tell the truth about the murderous war the U.S. is waging there.

• Carl challenges anyone who believes the election of Barack Obama means America has turned the corner on its legacy of inflicting brutal oppression on Black people to come out and make that case, too. Again, any takers need to be ready to talk about what's really going on because it's too late and too much is at stake to be talking falsely.

• Carl Dix has the experience to speak to these questions. In the 1960's he was drafted into the US military and given orders to go to Vietnam, but he refused those orders and was sentenced to 2 years in Leavenworth military penitentiary. This stand put him on the path to becoming a revolutionary and a communist, a path he remains on today. And it has great relevance for today's youth who face a similar question -- should they go kill people for this system, and maybe be killed themselves. In coming at all this, Carl bases himself on and is inspired by the work of Bob Avakian, the leader of the RCP, who has re-envisioned what revolution and communism are all about and how to realize them.

Last year, Carl participated in a historic dialogue with Cornel West of Princeton University on "The Ascendancy of Obama ... and the Continued Need for Resistance and Liberation." Before a packed house in Harlem, Carl and Cornel exchanged perspectives on the meaning and significance of America electing its 1st Black president and what needed to be done to continue to advance the fight against injustice in this country and around the world. And now Carl is on this tour. At Howard University, Carl will deliver a revolutionary message--that the world doesn't have to be this way, and that thru making revolution it would be possible to end the wars, the torture and government spying, the starvation and disease humanity is forced to endure today.

Carl says, "If you like what's going down in the US and around the world, you should come out and explain why any rational human being would feel that way. And if you hate all the misery, brutality and indignity the capitalist system is enforcing on the planet, you should come out and engage in the conversation about why all this continues to happen and what must be done to end it once and for all."
* * *

WHO IS CARL DIX -- Carl Dix is a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Paarty, USA. in 1970, Carl was one of the Fort Lewis 6, six GI's who refused orders to go to Vietnam. He served 2 years in Leavenworth Military Penitentiary for this stand. In 1985 Carl initiated the Draw The Line Statement, a powerful condemnation of the bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia. In 1996, Dix was a co-founder of the October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality. He was in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In 2006 he coordinated the Katrina hearings of the Bush Crimes Commission. He recently participated in a dialogue with Cornel West at Aaron Davis Hall, "The Ascendancy of Obama and the Continued Need for Resistance and Liberation" and was interviewed with Dr. West on Democracy Now by Amy Goodman.

Check out Carl on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ03EIBgTwI, and check out the DVD of the Dialogue Between Cornel West and Carl Dix at www.revolutionbooksnyc.org/West-Dix.htm

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The Haitian People Need Emergency Assistance NOT Suppression and Further Domination!

From the Editors of Revolution, January 14, 2010:


The world’s eyes are riveted on scenes of horror in Haiti . The world’s hearts are straining. People everywhere are trying to support the Haitian people in any way they can. Meanwhile, the clock ticks very urgently, as people literally die beneath the rubble and perish on the streets as well for lack of medical care, water, food, and shelter.

The means exist to rescue and aid the Haitian people! These must be made immediately available by the governments of the world and, first and foremost, the United States . While some governments have sent doctors and other forms of aid, as of Thursday morning the United States has focused on sending paratroopers and militarily securing the area. While Obama has now promised 100 million dollars, the U.S. government is above all concerned with ensuring the continuation of the repressive government order and controlling and/or suppressing the initiative and efforts of masses to deal with this horrible situation. (100 million dollars is less than one-tenth of one percent of U.S. yearly military expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan .) The U.S. government must immediately focus its resources on getting aid directly to the Haitian people, putting supplies on the ground and marshaling the many doctors, engineers, construction workers, etc. who work for the government, as well as the many many people who would volunteer to help any way that they could. THIS IS A HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCY, AND MUST BE DEALT WITH AS SUCH.

The Haitian people themselves must be assisted, and not suppressed. The media – just as it did in Katrina – is already portraying the Haitian people as animals and criminals. In fact, the masses in Haiti – as they did in New Orleans during Katrina – are in the main mobilizing to collectively deal with their situation. These efforts must be supported in all aid programs, and there must be no suppression by the U.S. troops of those who are trying with all their might to save themselves and their people. Volunteers coming from other countries must be assisted by the governments now sending aid to Haiti , and not suppressed.

History shows that there will be, and must be, a struggle against this system to demand that the needs of the masses actually be met and that there NOT be suppression of the masses. As part of this:

There must be no harassment, prosecution or deportation of Haitian immigrants within the U.S. attempting to locate, or aid, their loved ones and friends. Instead, government assistance must be made available to those trying to communicate to the island with a guarantee of at least temporary amnesty for any attempting to go through U.S.government agencies to do so.

There must be no attacks on Haitian people attempting to flee their situation through boats. Instead, the Coast Guard must help people attempting to flee to safety and if they are trying to get to the U.S. , must help them do so.

The disaster in Haiti is neither the result of the so-called “will of God” nor the fault of the Haitian people. It is the result of centuries of imperialist domination, occupation and isolation. The news reports talk about Haiti ’s poverty, but they don’t tell you why Haiti so poor. Very few people know that Haiti was the scene of the only successful slave revolution in history – when the heroic descendants of African slaves drove out the strongest army in the world at that time, the French. Very few people know that the world’s powers – especially the U.S. , which at that time feared the influence of Haiti on the slaves in this country, and France – embarked on a policy of isolating and impoverishing Haiti . Very few people know that for nearly 20 years in the early 1900's the U.S. marines occupied Haiti , suppressing a liberation struggle and implanting puppets. Very few people know that the U.S. backed the infamously cruel tyrant “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and then his son “Baby Doc,” in the middle of the century. And all too few know that it then conspired to overthrow the popular president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the 1990's and then again just a few years ago in 2004. All these criminal actions – this long criminal history of oppression – flowed from the economic and political needs of the U.S. ruling classes during the time when the United States was run, first, by a coalition of capitalist and slave-holding classes, and then more recently (and up to today) by the ruling capitalist-imperialist class. Throughout the last two centuries the U.S. has backed up reactionary ruling classes within Haiti as part of this.

In other words, the fact that the Haitian people live in terrible conditions and now must face this disaster with little resources other than their own hands and minds, and up against an extremely repressive set of social relations, is the result of a worldwide system. As the message “The Revolution We Need...The Leadership We Have,” from the RCP,USA puts it:

Throughout the world, as a result of this system, a billion people or more go hungry every day...with many facing the threat of starvation. Hundreds of millions of children are forced to work like slaves and to live in putrid slums, in the midst of garbage and human waste. Waves of immigrants, unable to live in their own homelands, travel the earth in search of work-- and if they find it, they are worked until they can hardly stand and are forced into the shadows, with the constant fear that they will be deported and their families broken apart. Growing numbers of people cannot find work at all now, with many losing their homes as well as their jobs, while others are worked even more mercilessly.Everyone is lured and driven to consume more and more, at the cost of ever mounting debt and the loss of any sense of larger purpose or meaning to life or any deeper connection with other human beings. Many are being pushed to the edge...growing numbers are going over the edge, often lashing out in crazed desperation.

Now this system makes a terrible disaster even worse. Imperialism, of course, did not cause the earthquake. But the system of imperialism dictates how that earthquake is responded to and dealt with.

In sum: this is NOT the best of all possible worlds.

We do NOT have to live this way. To again quote the message:

And it is through revolution to get rid of this system that we ourselves can bring a much
better system into being. The ultimate goal of this revolution is communism: A world where people work and struggle together for the common good...Where everyone contributes whatever they can to society and gets back what they need to live a life worthy of human beings....Where there are no more divisions among people in which some rule over and oppress others, robbing them not only of the means to a decent life but also of knowledge and a means for really understanding, and acting to change, the world.

As we work and struggle side by side to fight for the urgent demands of the Haitian people, we call on people to also engage with us in discussion on why things ARE the way they are, and wrangling over how to get to a whole different, and much better, world and to get into the work that our leader, Bob Avakian, has been doing on the kind of revolution we need and the ways that such a revolution could be made.

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The Controversy over PRECIOUS: The Demonization of Black Men? Or, Shining a Light on the Squandered Potential of "Precious Girls Everywhere"...

... and Why Everyone Should Want That Realized

by Carl Dix and Annie Day
from Revolution #189, January 17, 2010

The film Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire is a brave endeavor. It explores a rarely depicted reality for millions of women in our society, in particular the ways this brutal reality is experienced by Black women. The main character, Claireece Precious Jones, is an obese, dark-skinned young Black woman whose life has been a hell on earth of physical and sexual abuse.

The film looks unflinchingly at all Precious has suffered—raped by her father, pregnant with his second child, HIV positive, abused by her mother, subjected to disrespect from classmates and an uncaring school system. She feels, for good reason, invisible to the world. But, as Annie Day's review in Revolution newspaper put it, "The film also traces through a transformation for Precious. She is helped, nurtured and challenged by Blue Rain, a literacy teacher in a pre-GED program. And she is surrounded by young women like herself―some who are poor, formerly strung out young mothers, others who are beaten and cast out but all of them caring for each other in what is otherwise a largely uncaring world." (Revolution #184, November 29, 2009)

It's also beautifully made, with stirring and complex performances, putting you in the shoes of one of society's downcast and demonized. And, like powerful art, it is truly soul stirring.

Many, many people have welcomed this. Lines at theaters showing the film snaked out of the building and around corners. And commentary about the power of the impact of this film went on for weeks in print, on the radio and blogs.

The Controversy over Precious

The Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund received the following letter from a reader in prison:

"Had to stop and reflect on my crime..."
But some have responded with sharp critiques of the film, saying it's like "ghetto porn" and contributes to negative stereotypes of Black people. One widely referenced critique is from Black author Ishmael Reed. In a lengthy review titled "Hollywood's Enduring Myth of the Black Male Sexual Predator: The Selling of Precious," Reed condemned the movie for both "demonizing Black men," and for having "the worst depiction of Black females I've ever seen." Reed also said, "I would argue that it [Precious] makes D.W. Griffith look like a progressive." (Griffith was the director of the film, Birth of a Nation, a glorification of the early 20th century KKK.) Reed also charged the film with "minstrelism."

The promotion of minstrelsy is a pervasive part of American culture—images that negate the humanity and real creativity of Black people, reducing them to stereotypes that reaffirm in the minds of whites their own sense of superiority. These take form today with things like the parade of pro athletes and rappers portrayed as mindless criminals and thugs or Black women being depicted as sexually promiscuous gold diggers. So concern about the portrayal of Black people is understandable. But does Precious do this? No. Precious takes people who are usually only depicted as stereotypes, hated and looked down at, if looked at at all—overweight, dark-skinned Black girls and women on welfare—and shows them as they are, full humans with complexity and humanity. In this way it contributes to understanding more deeply the depths of the oppression people like them face and the impacts of those stereotypes. This is the exact opposite of minstrelsy.

Reed's Argument

It would take reams to take apart all of Reed's argument, but the essence of what he says is that Precious was made by white people—with Black artists as fronts—to market negative images of Black men to white audiences.

From Reed's article: "[D]id Daniels direct Precious or is he really playing the flak catcher for this heinous project like [executive producers] Oprah Winfrey and [Tyler] Perry? When he went on the set to exercise his role as ‘director' did the white people who own the movie and provide the crew for this film call security? Hard to say."

He develops this further: "They [white people] want to peek behind the curtains of black life to seek confirmation that all of the myths they've heard about black life are true. Richard Wright said that ‘The Negro is America's metaphor.' More like America's anti-depressant. People who are miserable in their own lives getting off by consuming black depravity, a big business."

And towards the end of his article, Reed writes, "Will the ‘niche' audience for which this movie is intended ever become weary of the brothers being a symbol of universal male misogyny? The face on the bull's-eye at which disgruntled feminists from all ethnic groups aim their arrows, women who are scared to challenge the misogyny practiced by males who share their background? Judging from the box office receipts, maybe not."

What Reed Ignores, and Erases

First, Reed never once asks if the film reflects reality. He never asks what it is actually like for young women and girls—of all nationalities—who are raped and molested in our society. And the particular ways this impacts Black women who are doubly oppressed. He never suggests that these stories should be told. By making this solely about a "marketing strategy" to sell "images of Black male depravity," Reed erases the brutal and undeniable reality of what it means to walk the earth as a woman. In the U.S. alone, 1 in 4 women are raped, a woman is beaten by her partner every 15 seconds, 3 women are killed every day by lovers and husbands, and almost 220 children are sexually abused every day―most of them by a relative or family friend.

Reed even criticizes the Pulitzer prize winning play, Ruined, about rape in the Congo, for contributing to this demonization. (Rape was systematically used as a weapon of war in the Congo and this play depicts the harrowing reality. There are no comprehensive statistics, but hundreds of thousands of women were raped in the Congo in the last 10 years and this is continuing at a frightening rate. The play also alludes to the role of the West in fueling the conflict in order to gain control of coltan resources, which are used in electronic devices such as cell phones. (Raymond Lotta discusses this in his powerful, short video: The Rape of the Congo and Your Cell Phone, youtube.com/raymondlotta.)1

Now do something Ishmael Reed refuses to do—stop and think about the lived impact of those numbers. The dreams of young girls crushed and broken and the lifetimes of nightmares that fill young girls' sleep. And think what it means that on top of this, like Precious, women are told in a thousand ways that they brought this torment on themselves. Annie Day wrote, "The story of Precious is not an anomaly but a distillation." And this reality reflects how this is so.

Reed also ignores the way the film has touched many, many people, especially (though not only) thousands of Black women who responded to seeing the film by telling anyone who would listen their own stories of abuse. Across the country, on Internet forums, schools and theatre lobbies Revolution distributors have talked to people. Even if not experienced with the same extremity, many women said they felt Precious gave a window into what they experience.

Third, Reed erases and ignores the development and personhood of Precious. She confronts horrific sexual and physical abuse, illiteracy, being infected with AIDS by her father and more, but isn't broken by them. He ignores the relationships Precious forges with her classmates, and with her teacher, who nurture and challenge her. They develop bonds of friendship, respect, struggle, and caring. While the film does not go easy on the brutality Precious suffers—it also shows her with humor, humanity, curiosity, a vibrant imagination, intelligence, and heart. This is not some faceless victim. But not once does Reed talk about her this way.

Writing in Salon.com, Erin Aubry Kaplan made an insightful point about why a young woman like Precious would be ignored and the importance of the film in telling her story, "Far from being some exploitative spectacle for whites, the hard-hitting tale of Precious is a film for blacks and a challenge to drop our own emotional armor and embrace a real-life story we have been minimizing for a long time—that of a big, black, sullen-faced, illiterate girl who lives in the depths of the ghetto and in all likelihood will stay there. She is the bogeywoman not just of white society but of black society, too, especially for a middle class that's been trying for years to rescue its ‘negative' racial image from the likes of Precious. But while we in the real world preach community ad nauseam, it's girls—and boys—like her who remain at the bottom of the well. In making the bottom dweller eminently human, the movie forces blacks to assess their own humanity. And I found myself squirming in the seat more than once."

The other thing that stands out in Reed's article is the way he talks about women generally. He refers to young Black women professors who have commented positively on Precious at the web zine The Root as "...[T]he types who are using university curriculum to get even with their fathers." He suggests that the poet and author Sapphire and the filmmaker Lee Daniels have falsely remembered histories of abuse. He hardly ever mentions a woman without saying something about her looks. Mariah Carey, who plays a welfare case worker, is "firm," "the camera favors" Paula Patton, who plays Precious' teacher, Blue Rain; he says three times that the actress who plays Precious is 350 pounds (a fact which he is clearly bothered by), and he describes one of the film's financial backers as "manicured" and "buffed," and one who "doesn't go lightly on the eye shadow." And in linking Oprah Winfrey's backing of this film with what he sees as her other efforts to demean Black men, including backing and starring in The Color Purple (which he calls a "black incest product"), he quotes someone as saying, "like her addiction to food," Oprah can't help demonizing Black men.

His defense of patriarchy also bubbles over in relation to gay people. Here he gets the basic facts of the film wrong. He says a male nurse, John John, played by Lenny Kravitz, is gay. In actuality, the film makes clear that John John is straight, but Reed's vision is so distorted he can't seem to fathom a soft-spoken male character who isn't gay. He goes on to say Precious is "a film in which gays are superior to Black male heterosexuals," creating some sort of patriarchal totem pole and then seeking to determine where "his group" sits in relation to the top.

Not everyone who has raised concerns about the film contributing to stereotypical portrayals of Black people or the demonization of Black men would uphold this kind of straight-up misogyny. But you have to ask why Reed's argument goes there and why his argument has resonated.

The Reality of Emasculation, Its Source and What Is and Isn't the Solution

"Women are not breeders. Women are not lesser beings. Women are not objects created for the sexual pleasure of men. Women are human beings capable of participating fully and equally in every realm of human endeavor. When women are held down, all of humanity is held back. Women must win liberation, and they can only be liberated through the revolutionary transformation of the world and the emancipation of all of humanity, and through being a powerful motive force in that revolution."

—A Declaration: For Women’s Liberation and the Emancipation of All of Humanity

Is there a reason to be concerned about the portrayal of Black men in popular culture? Absolutely. America was built on this—during slavery, the spectre of Black men as sexual predators was used to justify brutal subjugation. During the Jim Crow era, it was used to justify hundreds of lynchings of Black men. Birth of a Nation, which we mentioned above, is a celebration of the KKK, which was responsible for thousands of those lynchings and for creating a situation of literal terror for Black people. It was given a world-premiere at the White House and a ringing endorsement by the president at that time, Woodrow Wilson. (Wilson was reported to have commented that "it is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.")

Today, everywhere you turn are images of "young Black super-predators" and "irresponsible gangsters"—reality TV shows like COPS and even sports reports on ESPN are full of depictions of Black men as criminals and thugs. And the only "positive" images offered up are of Black men as cops, soldiers and Navy Seals. We don't need any of this!

And this system has sought to "emasculate" Black men throughout history. Literally, in the case of many lynchings where Black men were tortured (in the case of Claude Neal who was accused of murdering a white woman, his penis and testicles were cut off and he was forced to eat them before being barbarically killed2). And figuratively. Under slavery, any white man connected to a plantation could rape any female slave on that plantation, and her husband or brother or father or other loved ones could do nothing about it (to say nothing of what women slaves faced if they fought back). And Black men were treated like children, forced to scrape and shuffle, and bow their heads at any white person who crossed their path, with the threat of death if they didn't.

One of the examples Reed cites is the Central Park Jogger case. In 1989, five Black and Latino youth were falsely charged of raping a white woman in Central Park. The media and authorities whipped up an ugly racist fervor around this case, painting these youth as if they were uncontrollable animals. Despite DNA evidence that showed none of them were linked to the crime, they were convicted and spent years in prison on these false charges.

Reed seizes on a poem written by Sapphire at the time called Wild Thing, where she writes about the rape from the alleged rapists' perspective. It was controversial at the time—many charged that she was attempting to "humanize" the alleged rapists because she painted a real and powerful sense of their anger, and from where it arose though she didn't idealize or uphold them. It is true, and a problem, that she, like most people at the time, did not question their guilt. This is a necessary thing to learn from, but we encourage readers to look up the poem, as she is attempting to speak to an important contradiction, and was not out to "demonize Black men" or make great financial gains, as Reed cynically states.


What Is the Source of All This?

The perpetrator of all this is not women. And it's certainly not women who have spoken out about the oppression they've faced as women. The capitalist system is what's really responsible for the oppression of Black people, and it's what's holding down all of humanity. The brutal subjugation of Black people has been built into the very fabric of U.S. society from the beginning. The system of white supremacy has gone through many changes, but it has NOT gone away and has in fact been integral to the economy, the politics, the culture and the psychology of America since Day One. It was on the basis of the enslavement of Black people that the wealth of this country, both that of the slaveholders in the South and of the merchants and factory owners of the North, was built up. The exploitation of Black sharecroppers was a pillar of continued development of the U.S. economy during the Jim Crow period. And Black workers being limited to the bottom tier of the U.S. work force was a source of superprofits for U.S. capital post-WW2. Today, the other side of the images of Black people as inner city thugs and welfare queens is a reality based on the very operation of the capitalist system, which has sucked the jobs out of the cities across the country, as capital moves around the world in search of higher rates of profit.

Along with this grinding exploitation has been denial of the very humanity of Black people, both men and women! This may seem obvious, but when Reed looks at it, the heart of what he sees is the denial of Black manhood. In this view, depicting the ways Black men participate in the subjugation of Black women is offensive and harmful because it undercuts their ability to be unfettered dominators of "their" women.

Striving to enable Black men to assert their "manhood" in a society saturated in the violent and systematic oppression of women will only lead to keeping this system with these relations intact. What meaning does manhood even have in this society except one that involves the assertion of strength and power over women, whatever the intention? It means asserting the privileges that historically are granted men and in this case, Black men wanting their share of that privilege. It would be as if a slave were to assert his/her right to be a master—as opposed to being free.

And far too often, this "privilege" of being a dominator is upheld and even celebrated. Oppressed men of all races are conditioned and taught to act as the agents of the oppression of women and to gain gratification from this. Men are told, and take up the view themselves, that women are inferior beings over whom they have dominance, who exist for their sexual pleasure or to serve them as mothers or wives. These ideas have deep roots in the centuries old development of human societies into class societies with the oppression of women as one of the most essential divides.

From Annie Day's review: "We are told and taught that the family is a divinely inspired eternal institution, forged out of love and caring. In fact, the form of the family has changed over the centuries.

"Our ancestors traced the lineage through the mother and lived in kinship units that did not involve relations of domination, ownership or suppression. Only with the development of society's ability to produce a surplus over what was necessary for mere survival, and the rise of private property and the division into classes on that basis, did the modern family arise. Once that had happened, it began to matter which child belonged to which father so the surplus wealth, or lack thereof, could be passed down. The family enforced a division of labor where the woman was responsible for providing the man with children and the raising of children, and the women and children were the property of the man."

One of the things that confuses people is that patriarchal structures and views are often maintained and defended by women as well. Mothers are expected to prepare their daughters for the role society expects them to play. In many semi-feudal societies, the mother-in-law plays a dominant, and often direct, role over her son's wife. Or in many Black families, grandmothers have often been seen as, and celebrated for, playing the role of an enforcer (for an example of this, go back to Richard Pryor's routines about his grandmother and the switch). Nonetheless, all this is still part of, and part of maintaining, the overall patriarchal setup.

Precious depicts this powerfully and painfully. Mary Jones, Precious' mother, abuses Precious—sexually, physically and mentally. In the film, she is monstrous, and through the story you come to understand the monstrous choices she faced—if she was going to keep her man, she would have to exchange her daughter. This cruel choice then shaped everything about who she was. Bound up with this, she adopted the view that since she'd been sexually humiliated, and fucked over for someone else's pleasure, she deserved the right to humiliate and fuck over her daughter for her sexual pleasure. This is a calculation, it is about property and domination in our most intimate spaces. And it drives all too much of male sexual behavior, even as in this case it is clearly shown animating a woman abuser.

All this is actively inculcated in, and far too often taken up by, people today. Through the increasingly violent pornography where women are literally empty shells to be demeaned and degraded for men's sexual pleasure and through the ceaseless speculation about prominent women's baby bumps in celebrity magazines—women are told they should find their meaning in being a sexual commodity or breeder for men. And in books, magazines and advice columns—women are told, often by other women, to shape their lives around attracting and keeping a man.

This comes down in particularly sharp and painful ways among Black people because "the traditional two-parent family" has, in many ways, broken down—most Black children are raised by single mothers. But this too is a product of the workings of the system itself—the economic base for two-parent families was undercut with the outflow of jobs internationally to further exploit people around the globe, there was an influx of drugs consciously directed at the Black community, then brutal repression leading to there being almost a million Black men in prison today. On top of this, there is an ideological assault that turns this situation on its head and blames Black people themselves for these conditions which are not of their making. You hear this poison trumpeted all over—that the source of the problems in the Black community is irresponsible Black fathers. And it's even coming from the commander-in-chief of the American empire, Barack Obama, blaming "absent Black fathers" for the way this system has written off now generations of youth, unable and unwilling to provide jobs or decent education or any kind of future at all.

Lots of people think the solution to all this is "strong male role models and father figures." And many have pointed to Precious in that light as well—that it's harmful because, whether it depicts reality or not, these are characters that shouldn't be highlighted. But art like this, art that depicts the oppression of women—and the role men play in that—should have, as one of its effects, the posing to such men of the real human cost of this oppression and should propel them to not only renounce "their part" in it but to fight against it.

Here we'll quote a special issue of Revolution, "The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of This System, and the Revolution We Need": "Black children don't need ‘male role models'—they need an end to the crippling conditions that hem them in at every point. They need revolution, and they need revolutionary role models, women no less than men. They need to see men and women who model the mutual respect and equality that reflects the world we are fighting for: a whole new liberated world where girls grow up strong and without fear of being raped, degraded or abused, where no child is ever deemed ‘illegitimate,' and where men―like everyone else―find their worth in contributing to the betterment of all of humanity through the revolutionary transformation of all society rather than by getting in on even a little of the oppression of this nightmare world."

Any other approach to this will only strengthen the chains that keep us all bound.

What It Will Really Take for Humanity to Triumph

In many ways, particularly for men, the oppression of women and whether you seek to completely abolish or to preserve the existing property and social relations and the corresponding ideology that enslave women (or maybe "just a little bit" of them) is a touchstone question among the oppressed themselves. It is a dividing line between "wanting in" and really "wanting out": between fighting to end all oppression and exploitation—and the very division of society into classes—and seeking in the final analysis to get your part in this.

Bob Avakian, A Horrible End or An End to the Horror?, p. 140

A final point in all this: one of the controversies around Precious has been whether the film ends on a high note. And here we need to unravel some things.

Ishmael Reed quotes writer Courtland Milloy: "Strangest of all, many reviewers felt the movie ended on a high note. Time, for instance, wrote that Precious ‘makes an utterly believable and electrifying rise from an urban abyss of ignorance and neglect.' Excuse me, the movie ends with the girl walking the streets, babies in her arms, having just learned that her father has died of AIDS—but not before infecting her."

But this ignores, or doesn't recognize, the way Precious does triumph on one level. This is captured in the gift from Precious of an orange scarf to a small girl with a black eye, also beaten by her family, whose friendship Precious had earlier spurned. Precious found this orange scarf discarded, though in her dreams it was a gift from a Black fairy godmother and in the film, it is ever present—a piece of brightness in her otherwise dark life. She passes this on to help this little girl make it through. Precious is determined to move forward, she does not return to the familiar confines of her mother's dark apartment, she does not return to the brutal and bloody as so many women in our society do. She strikes out—into the unknown and uncertain. As the film closes, we are certain her life will be a struggle, but we also know she will not go back to what was.

It is the case however that this alone will not lead her to the victory we hope for her. And here is where there is bitterness at the film's end—but it is a bitterness made of the world today, and the film is an honest depiction of that. One of the things we heard from many people in interviews or on online forums after the film was that this showed that making good choices can get you out of a bad situation. This is not true, and we don't think this is the lesson to draw from this powerful story.

Annie Day's review spoke to this: "[T]his situation is not a product of one individual's poor choices or irresponsible behavior. People do not choose the society into which they are born. They do not choose the structure of that society's traditional relations between different groups of people―relations in which people of one gender, or one race or nationality, possess privileges and lord it over the others. They encounter these relations from even before they begin to speak, so that it can seem as natural as the air they breathe―but they do not choose them. They do not choose to be in a situation where everything―and everyone―is seen as a means to profit and more profit by those who have power, and where this outlook saturates and permeates everyone else. All this is thrust upon them, and they must find their position within it.

"The only real choice we have is whether to resist this, to make our peace with it, or to respond to being demeaned by reaching back, demeaning and brutalizing others. To either fight against being made meaningless as ‘black grease,' or to try to get your own piece of that domination."

Reed's answer to this choice is clear and wrong, but a radically different answer is required from all those who want to see the potential "of Precious girls everywhere" realized.

We need a revolution. The most radical revolution of millions bringing into being a radically different system. A total revolution, aiming for the emancipation of all of humanity—putting an end to a situation where people are crushed down and crushed under by the millions, putting an end to class divisions, the oppression of whole peoples and the supremacy of others and the brutal and ubiquitous subjugation of women—literally half of humanity.

As a part of fighting for, and fueling, that revolution, we need to be bringing forward today a radically different morality—new ways of being and of treating each other. Where instead of an ideal of asserting one's "manhood," there is an ideal of asserting and expressing one's humanity. A morality of equality and respect among different nationalities and cultures, between men and women. An appreciation and encouragement of the outpouring of bitterness at what it means to be oppressed in the world today, tsunamis of speak-outs about the otherwise all too hidden pains and abuses. A fostering of friendship among men and women, boys and girls without seeing each other as commodities to be gained or gotten over on. Sexual relations that explore the full range of human pleasure explored mutually by fully present equals. A spirit of debate and struggle, curiosity and learning, imaginings and resistance—all as part of really building a movement for revolution to change the whole world once and for all.

1. See also www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/nov/14/congo.chrismcgreal and www.vday.org/drcongo/background#1.

2. This case is discussed powerfully in Bob Avakian’s talk, Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About, youtube.com/revolutiontalk.

2009 Year End Letter From Carl Dix

Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party USA
P.O. Box 941 Knickerbocker Station
New York, New York 10002-0900

Phone: 866-841-9139 x2670 E-Mail: comradecarl@hotmail.com
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December 26, 2009

Dear Friend,

We’re nearing the end of a year that has been marked by war, crisis, misery and unspeakable brutality. The year to come needs to be one of hope, based on a solid foundation, for a radically different world where the indignities of today have been ended. The problem is that for most people revolution is off the map. They don’t think there’s anything that could be done to fundamentally change things, and this reduces them to working on the margins of this rotten set up in futile efforts to achieve incremental change. I have spent much of the past year, and will spend the coming year, throwing myself into the efforts of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) to break humanity out of this situation. Revolution needs to be put back on the map and people need to know there’s leadership for this revolution. (There’s more on this below.) This is something I feel passionately about. I’m writing you to let you know what I’ve done this past year and what I plan for the year to come to help achieve these goals.

The opening of 2009 found many people filled with hope that America's election of a Black president signaled turning the corner on America’s legacy of aggression around the world and oppression at home. Yet on New Years Day 2009, police in Oakland, California, gunned down Oscar Grant – a foul murder caught on cell phone video and seen round the world. And the wars continued in Afghanistan and Iraq. I opened the year writing two articles for Revolution Newspaper: "Don't Be a Buffalo Soldier" and "Condemn the Police Murder of Oscar Grant – Enough Is Enough." Go to Revolution Online at www.revcom.us to access these articles.

In the spring, Dr. Cornel West and I had a talk over dinner. We discussed the situation in the U.S.and around the world. In this context, we dug into what role we saw the Obama administration playing in relation to the foreign policy thrust and the domestic agenda of the Bush regime. Through the course of discussion we discovered we had a good bit of unity on this assessment, and Cornel suggested we have this conversation at a public event.

That suggestion led to the important dialogue Cornel and I had in July on the campus of the City College of New York in Harlem. Our theme was: “The Ascendancy of Obama … And the Continued Need for Resistance and Liberation.” This exchange broke the ice on a question too many people who yearn to see an end to the injustice the U.S.inflicts on humanity had held back from addressing – Does Obama represent a way to deal with this injustice, or a way for this system to cover up the crimes it commits worldwide? In this Dialogue, I addressed the way Obama has continued the foreign policy thrust of the Bush regime and how his “tough love” speeches blame Black people for what the system does to them. The DVD of this Dialogue has just been released. You could get a copy of it by contacting Revolution Books in NYC. (Website: www.revolutionbooksnyc.org. Or you can contact them by phone: 212-691-3345.)

In the fall, as Obama planned to escalate the war in Afghanistan, I began a national speaking tour titled: “From Buffalo Soldier to Revolutionary Communist.” So far this tour has stopped at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Atlanta and Houston. On it, I speak of my personal history, refusing to go to Vietnam and being imprisoned in Leavenworth Military Penitentiary. And I bring out how this, and a desire to get to the root of the war of aggression in Vietnam and the hell the U.S. was inflicting on Black people, led me to become a revolutionary communist. I also bring to today's youth an important message: Don’t Be Modern Day Buffalo Soldiers. Don’t fight in this system’s wars for empire. And, the world doesn’t have to be this way. We could end once and for all the wars, the starvation and disease, the way women are seen as either breeders of children or sex objects, the oppression of Black people through revolution. You can view the YouTube promo for this tour at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ03EIBgTwI

Obama’s recent announcement that 30,000 more troops will be sent to Afghanistan makes this message even more timely. In the year to come we will see even more death and destruction rained down on the people of Afghanistan, and we will continue to see people all over the world subjected to the misery and deprivation imperialism means for the majority of humanity.

I will be continuing and expanding my tour, going to more Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other campuses. I will be going on the airwaves, getting in print and into the blogoshpere with this message that this is not the best of all possible worlds, that a far better world is not only necessary but possible. I believe this is a key thing that’s needed right now. Helping people see that they don’t have to limit themselves to working for incremental changes on the margins of this rotten set up.

This brings me back to a theme I opened this letter on—that people need a source of hope that is based on a solid, scientific foundation tht a radically different, and far better, world could be brought into being. The work of Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) can provide that foundation. He has reassessed the revolutions in the Soviet Union and China, before both those revolutions were overthrown and capitalism was restored in both those countries. Through doing this work, through identifying what these revolutions did right and fearlessly identifying their weaknesses, he has re-envisioned communist revolution and how to bring it about. People need to know about this. Which is why I’ve thrown myself into the effort of the RCP to put revolution back on the map and to introduce people to Bob Avakian. The Revolutionary Communist Party issued an important statement on all this titled: “The Revolution We Need … And the Leadership We Have.” You can view this statement by going to: www.revcom.us/a/171/statement-en.html

I’m also in the process of writing a response to the controversy around the movie Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire. One of the most disgusting features of US society is the brutality and degradation women are forced to endure in this so-called “best of all possible worlds.” This movie – Precious – comes out which concentrates some of the ways Black women are subjected to abuse in the US, and the response is to condemn it as “ghetto porn” that “demonizes Black men.” This reminded me of the storm of condemnation heaped on the movie and book, The Color Purple; and I thought I had to speak to it. (I wrote “Thoughts on The Color Purple” to address that controversy. It’s available online.)

I’d welcome hearing from you on what you’re thinking, how you look at the past year, and what you’re looking forward to in the year to come. And what you think of what I’ve had to say here.

With Love, and In Struggle,


Carl Dix



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