This Moment Must Be About Black-Ness

First and foremost this story goes out to peoples, conscious or not, who have never had to fear a kkkop, security guard or default klan member stalking them for attack, murder, arrest or random harassment solely because of their race, color or culture

Additionally, for all of my fellow poor, disabled, houseless folks, non-Black POC’s, migrante peoples who have walked with the terror of other serious oppressions, I am also speaking to you. Cause like me, you might fear the Po’Lice, ICE or racists at every corner too, but our specific stories of oppression are not at issue at this moment. This moment is and must be about Black-ness.

In the fight against Po’Lice terror killings in the wite-supremacist nation of amerikkklan, po’ wite peoples and non-Black POC’s must practice something we are never taught, humility. In this moment this means step aside with #allofourlives to ensure a single issue rooted in hundreds of years of lies, exploitation and murder be about a single issue rooted in hundreds of years of lies exploitation and murder. To do this we must collectively shut up, stay quiet, move- aside, sit down, stand in witness, listen, not lead, and most importantly for us folks in struggle, not even try to place our oppression in the pool.

In other words, if you do not walk in a Black-identified body, this is a moment to practice humility. A value never taught in this stolen colonizer-run world.

Actually most peoples of all colors, Black, Brown and all in between, in the US, are encouraged to win, to be first, to “get ahead” to lead. This is a practice created to lure peoples away from their elders and ancestors and traditions and communities and make them more able to exploit each other for profit. To “win” in the kkkompetitive pool of amerikkklan, folks are taught by the institutions of learning to shout out, stand in front, raise their hands all the time, colonize space and time and actions, and above all, move ahead of the “pack”.

As a daughter of a Black/Indian houseless, disabled woman, I have practiced humility all my life. I have had to use my own light-skin, mobility and strength, as my mama used to say, to navigate the deep racism that runs through every single aspect of life in this colonizer run reality and hold up, provide space for, enable access and resources to, provide endless love and support for first my mama and then to all of my fellow Black, Brown and indigenous brothers and sisters in struggle who I work with, fight and stand along-side in multiple revolutions. My own sun, a light-skinned Mayan, Aztec, African, Chinese and Taino boy, whose ancestral cultures all teach humility and respect, and he himself practiced at home based on my teaching, was drowning in Man skoo teaching which was encouraging him to colonize space and time. It was so deep he didn’t even know it was happening and i had to spend months helping him un-learn those lies.

But this is the plan, we are all pawns in the game of non-humility – the cult of independence and nation of separation, It is important for us all to care little for our fellow human and to constantly look out for our needs, to colonize ideas, and peoples like there was nothing before us except us, These self-absorbed ways lead to us never walking with humility and enabling our collective separation. This is a sickness specific to the stolen state of amerikkklan. And it filters activism and revolutionary work to a fault

This same colonizing processes led to the multiple ways that the “Occupy movement” caused a lot of harm to already existent peoples of color movements. When Occupy was launched there were so many people flooding into activism which was great, but they moved en masse like nothing and no-one came before them

Sadly this is very typical in a lot of activist movements in the US – environmental movements that don’t include, support or honor the original stewards of Mama Earth, aka 1st Nations peoples who have always honored and protected Mama Earth, Food Insecurity aka Hunger movements led by peoples who have never missed a meal a day in their lives never being led by peoples fighting for food stamps and WIC. Poverty and houseless struggles led by peoples who have never been poor or houseless and Disability justice movements serving poor, disabled peoples of color, not including any leadership by poor disabled peoples of color.

Why We Po’ Folks Produced the Decolonizers Guide to A Humble Revoltuion

This process bleeds into media and academia, with the endless onslaught of media and “research” focusing on things and peoples that never have any agency in the fight and are never part of the conversation This is why us Po folks started POOR Magazine – this is why my comrade and brother Leroy Moore started Krip Hop and this is why many of us at POOR Press, wrote the book a Decolonizers Guide to A Humble Revolution, which we produced, by any means necessary in the middle of the Occupy scene to attempt to teach folks back the most basic values of humility, a value which so many of us lack.

Because Black bodies leading, is this revolution

In the end, the particular practice of humility I am pleading for, falls hardest on us po folks of many cultures and colors who already feel like we are never heard or included. But in this moment in the United Snakkkes of AMerikkklan we must realize Blackness and Black skinned bodies must be made space for to lead, speak and teach, because Black bodies leading, is this revolution. The fight must name blackness and Blackness only- and although ALL lives matter and black and brown and disabled and poor lives matter and are under attack, we shouldn’t feel the need to insert ourselves or be heard. This moment is about the hideous fact that Black Lives are being killed, incarcerated and targeted at the highest rate in this racist state As non-Black POC’s and poor folks, we must step back, stand by, stand with, and support, humbly, realizing this doesn’t mean that ALL lives don’t matter, or do matter- its just that for now, in this time until there is real systemic halt to the extra-judicial killing of Black peoples, Black babies, Black fathers and Black Lives must be at the center of this fight.