MIM Notes 187 June 1 1999

New film Black & Gold sums up ALKQN's 
politicization and progress

Black & Gold, an independent film produced by 
Big Noise Productions, offers audiences a look 
into the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation in 
New York. It documents the transformations ALKQN 
has undergone since 1994 when the leadership 
consciously decided to move away from street 
gang activities and into political organizing. 
On April 22 and 23 the Massachusetts premier 
screening for the movie Black & Gold were held 
in Cambridge, and Roxbury Massachusetts. Kings 
and Queens from New York City were at the 
screening to speak and answer questions.

The film relies heavily on interviews with King 
Tone, the ranking leader in New York since the 
imprisonment of King Blood in 1996. Black & Gold 
also provides commentary from other Latin Kings 
and Queens who discuss the politicization of the 
organization, the involvement of wimmin since 
the name was changed from Latin Kings in 1994, 
and the future course of the organization. The 
ALKQN sought out the film makers to produce this 
documentary as a way to help in their struggle 
to transform the Nation into a strong political 
movement.

The ALKQN of New York make it clear they are not 
trying to make people ignore their past. In fact 
they embrace the past and consider it something 
to learn from. King Tone points to mistakes made 
as a chance to learn. And the Nation repeatedly 
offers the Young Lords Party and the Black 
Panthers Party as examples from history worth 
studying. In particular, the Young Lords 
Party/Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers 
Organization began as a Chicago street gang 
named the Young Lords before becoming a 
revolutionary political organization.

When asked about the relationship between the 
ALKQN in NY and other states King Hector replied 
"We're an autonomous group in New York trying to 
become a beacon for others. Not only for Kings 
but for Crips and Bloods..."

The members of the Nation at the movie screening 
described the wide range of community programs 
the Nation has initiated. These include 
education classes for youth and domestic 
violence programs. King Hector said that their 
approach to existing community organizations is 
consistent:  they do not trust liberalism. 
"Liberalism has a way of perpetuating the status 
quo. We're suspicious of it and we don't want 
it." They send members in to join community 
groups and once these people gain positions of 
power in the organizations they reveal their 
membership in the Nation. In this way they 
attempt to take over liberal groups to better 
serve the people. Ultimately, King Mission 
explained, their goal is to be self-sufficient 
economically.

Black & Gold didn't try to make the story of the 
New York ALKQN transformation into a fairy tale. 
There are still members of the Nation who want 
to follow the gang mentality and take part in 
crime and drugs and violence. But Tone tries to 
deal with these people peacefully, describing 
one incident where several members wanted to 
meet him late at night to fight and he showed up 
with supporters and disarmed them without any 
weapons of his own, just using persuasion. This 
does not mean the ALKQN is a pacifist 
organization. King Hector made it clear after 
the movie that they will use all means necessary 
to achieve their goals and that they consider 
violence a justifiable measure:  "We're not 
about nonviolence...we're about righteousness".

This transformation in the ALKQN terrifies the 
government which has made the Nation a target 
for tremendous police repression. King Tone has 
been arrested and cleared of more false charges 
than even his lawyer can keep track of. Over the 
past three years his lawyer estimated Tone has 
spent about a total of a year in jail awaiting 
trial.

On May 14 1998 the NYPD, FBI and other law 
enforcement pig departments of the government 
took part in 'Operation Crown' which involved 
the round up of 100 Latin Kings and Queens. Tone 
points out that in all of the houses forcibly 
entered and searched that night, not one had any 
guns or illegal drugs. Most of the members were 
cleared of charges but Tone was convicted on the 
charge of conspiring to sell drugs and is 
currently awaiting sentencing.

King Mission, speaking after the movie 
screening, called for the freedom of Mumia and 
all political prisoners and prisoners of war 
including the unrecognized ones like King Tone 
and other members of the Nation locked up 
because of the political organizing they are 
doing. This correct stance takes the question of 
political prisoners to an important level. 
Understanding that the system that arrests and 
locks up people in this country is politically 
corrupt. This is the basis for MIM's statement 
that all prisoners are political prisoners.

The ALKQN representatives said they had been 
threatened several times, being told that they 
should not take this trip to Boston. And the 
Boston Globe, reporting on the movie screening 
apparently spoke to undercover police officers 
who said they would be on hand "watching 
suspiciously."(1) And indeed the five or so 
conservative looking older white men who 
attended both screenings seemed out of place and 
were likely pigs.

In fact this harassment reaches all the way down 
into the public schools. One young Latin Queen, 
Queen Villy, speaking after the movie said that 
at age 16 she has already been kicked out of 
four high schools just for being a member of the 
Nation. She is currently studying on her own at 
a community college and with the Nation.

The audience at the movie screening in Cambridge 
was primarily Harvard students and was mostly 
white. The ALKQN representatives sometimes 
addressed the audience as if they were talking 
to other members of the Nation, speaking as if 
the audience faced daily oppression and had the 
same material interest in the struggle.

But other comments correctly distinguished 
between various groups in society as several 
members recognized the comfortable position most 
of the audience enjoys. Queen Ice contrasted the 
struggles of wimmin at Harvard who might have to 
fight harder than men to get $70-80,000 jobs (a 
figure which she started at 50-60,000 but then 
correctly revised upward) but don't have to 
fight just to survive.

This underscores the important point that the 
struggle against exploitation and oppression 
does not put the white majority in this country 
on the side of the oppressed. In fact, the white 
settler nation as a group has an interest in 
perpetuating the exploitation of the 
international proletariat and the national 
oppression of internal semi-colonies within u.s. 
borders. The perpetuation of Amerikan hegemony 
maintains the comfortable life style of the 
white settler nation at the expense of the 
majority of the people of the world.

The question of how society divides into 
oppressed and oppressor came up in the movie 
with an interview with a former Young Lords 
Party member who is still politically active. He 
said that it is a class question, not a question 
of nation that divides people. But he gave no 
evidence to support this and this position 
contradicts his work with the YLP and the ALKQN, 
both organizations that focus on fighting for 
the liberation of groups based on national 
oppression.

There are many liberals and self-proclaimed 
Marxists running around this country yelling 
about class exploitation and talking about the 
horrible oppression of the white workers who are 
just divided from their Latino and Black 
brothers and sisters by racism. But when we 
analyze material conditions, it is clear that as 
a group Latinos and Blacks face distinct 
oppression that is more than just the incorrect 
attitude of racism. This oppression divides 
groups by economy, culture, language, and 
territory. This national oppression is a part of 
the system of imperialism which profits by 
stealing the labor and resources from its 
colonies and keeps those most likely to rebel 
locked up in prisons or daily harassed by police 
occupation forces in their neighborhoods.

Although neither the movie nor the discussion 
provided a clear picture of where the Nation 
would like to take society, in one interview 
King Tone points out that the problem includes 
the fundamental system of capitalism. And, after 
the movie in a reference to Mao, King Mission 
said "it is more than reading the little red 
book and throwing it in your book bag. It's 
about the whole life." But when asked about 
whether they could envision a society in which 
the Nation would not be necessary Queen Ice 
replied that the Nation will always be needed 
because the people will always be oppressed.

We need to think bigger than this:  we can 
conquer the system and put into place one where 
the people are not oppressed.

We are hopeful that the Almighty Latin King 
Queen Nation will move toward the correct path 
of Maoism to liberate the people from 
imperialist oppression. Summing up the ALKQN 
history and studying the history of the Maoist 
vanguards of 1960s Amerika -- Young Lords Party 
and the Black Panther Party, are essential 
starting points. MIM hopes for further 
politicization and struggle over the universal 
necessity of Maoist revolutionary parties to 
lead the people in overthrowing the corrupt 
system of imperialism and establishing a 
socialist system in its place.

Notes:

1. Boston Globe 23 April 1999. p. B1.

To get a copy of Black & Gold or to arrange a 
screening check out www.bignoisefilms.com.