MIM Notes No. 200      December 15, 1999

Why do you spell "Amerikkka" like that?

Wednesday 17 November, the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) 
Daily, the campus student newspaper, ran a piece of editorial art 
parodying MIM's use of the spelling "Amerikkka." The art did not 
address the politics in MIM Notes, only our language. Here we 
reprint our response to the Daily. MIM Notes readers are welcome 
to share their thoughts with the Daily as well, you can reach the 
Daily letters editor at: daily.letters@umich.edu Please send us a 
copy of any letters you send to the Daily about this. Also of note 
is that the Daily choose not to run MIM's response, yet another 
reason to have a proletarian newspaper.

To the Daily:

Thomas Kuljurgis's editorial cartoon on Wednesday Nov. 17 posed a 
student saying he doesn't read MIM Notes because reading 
"Amerikkka" too many times makes him "feel like I'm stuttering." 
We'd like to thank the Daily for raising the question so publicly. 
Really it's two questions: why so we spell Amerika that way? and 
why don't we use a softer tone to get our point across?

MIM takes the spelling of Amerika with a "k" from the 
revolutionary movements of the 1970s. The term "United States" is 
inappropriate for a country that occupies thousands of First 
Nations, the Black nation, Aztlan and Puerto Rico. This country is 
not in fact "United" but is a substantial empire extending 
throughout u.$. borders and beyond.

We use angry language because the oppressed and exploited have a 
lot to be angry about, these are the people in whose interests we 
work. If you want an organization that uses calm tones, the 
Democratic Party or the Greens might be for you. Our middle-class 
critics are inclined to believe that there is a neutral 
educational tone appropriate for all communications. In reality, a 
neutral tone is not appropriate for the emergency situation that 
exists today.

The u.$. prison population is approaching two million, and you 
cannot find a statistic of greater per capita imprisonment of 
Black people anywhere including apartheid South Africa before 
Nelson Mandela was president. Amerika has occupied Puerto Rico and 
the Philippines for more than 100 years, and today imprisons 
Puerto Rican citizens for "sedition" against a country whose 
citizenship they never asked for. We communists seek to match our 
tone to underlying substance. We encourage any readers interested 
in discussing the substance of our line to get in touch. You can 
email us at mim52@mim.org

In struggle, 

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)