No black
blood for a white man's war
OAKLAND — On April 6,
2003 the Oakland Branch of the African People’s Socialist Party held
a forum at the Uhuru House entitled “No Black Blood for a White Man’s
War.” The forum united African leaders and the African community
to address the unjust war on Iraq and the war on our community, something
the white-led peace movement has consistently ignored.
The African community must
be allowed to define the question of peace. We can no longer allow the
white-left to define peace for us. The forum gave testimony that there
is a need and desire for the African community to voice our opposition
to the unjust war on Iraq.
The forum was attended mostly
by Africans who had heard Chairman Omali Yeshitela speak at an anti-war
rally the day before. This was an anti-war rally organized by the white
left that fought to censor the Uhuru Movement.
The Uhuru Movement had to struggle
fiercely, up until the time the Chairman spoke, to be given three minutes
for him to speak. At every planning meeting and through the exchange of
group e-mails, it was crystal clear that the white-led peace movement
did not want to hear the African community’s definition of peace.
They do not want to hear about the daily war we are facing in our community,
a war that has been waged on our community for hundreds of years. This
war is waged by way of the miseducation of our children, police brutality
running rampant in our community, the imprisonment of 1 out of every 10
Africans, the justice system stealing our babies with their “foster
care”, and countless other ways we are oppressed by the US government.
The forum featured the leader
and founder of the African People’s Socialist Party as the keynote
speaker. Other speakers included were Henry Clark, Chairman of the West
County Toxics Coalition; Willie Ratcliff, the owner and editor of the
San Francisco Bay View Newspaper; and Traivon, a local teacher, college
student and cultural artist.
The event was dedicated to Lil’ Bobby Hutton, a member of the Black
Panther Party who was murdered at the age of sixteen by the Oakland Police
Department thirty five years ago. The Chairman summed it up best when
he said, “We won’t settle for peace on the plantation.”
We will not support peace rallies that support “peace on the plantation.”
We support the courageous Iraqi people and their struggle for freedom.
The African People’s Socialist
Party has a 14-point platform that states “what we want, what we
believe.” Point 10 states, “We want the right to build an African
People’s Liberation Army. We believe that true freedom, although
often taken away, cannot be given to a people. We believe that African
people are our own liberators, and that we have a right and obligation
to build an African People’s Liberation Army to defend our political
gains, our freedom fighters and communities, and to win our actual freedom
from our oppressive colonial slave masters. We believe that neither meaningful
freedom, nor guaranteed political and social gains, nor genuine liberation
are possible without the assuring existence of an African People’s
Liberation Army. We believe further that the only legitimate wars are
wars of national liberation, and wars to oppose imperialist aggression,
and that therefore, the only legitimate military forces which defend liberty
and repel imperialist aggression. Such a force would be the African People’s
Liberation Army.”
We have to continue to bring
organization to the fighting spirit of the African community that the
government has tried so hard to smother. We have to prepare for the continued
battle we fight daily against the attacks on our community.
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