We are caught in a system of competitiveness, manipulation, one against
the other, brother against brother, family against family, people
against people, gangs against gangs, ethnic groups against ethnic
groups, color against color, class against class, instead of minority or
lower class against the ruling class.
We focus too much on meaningless self-imposed politics that were
manipulated into our minds growing up. Like ditch school, destroy your
own neighborhoods, sell drugs to your own people, we gang bang, we fight
our own over colors and sides only. The only way you can make it is by
rapping about killing your own people or selling drugs to your own. As a
Chicano I grew up not only hearing this from my peers but that’s also
what the music I was told to like and listen to said. The television
also told me my people are only on TV as gang bangers, drug dealers,
etc.
As I grew older I started to realize something is wrong here, where did
I go wrong? What have I done for myself? For my family? For my people?
Nothing but self-imposed distraction. I am soaking in my own blood and
that of my people. I got a hunger for knowledge. Why is it things are
the way they are?
The more I studied, the more I realized this is not new but a very old
cycle set up by a system to manipulate my mind. A system that went after
Martin L. King, a peaceful man, a pastor on his quest for civil rights.
The government unlawfully wired his phones, tried to break up his
family, tried to unlawfully disrupt his movement by all means to an end.
We’ve learned how the CIA was helping Pablo Escobar flood our streets
with drugs. How they dismantled and unlawfully disrupted the Brown
Berets and Black Panthers because they were trying to teach and uplift
the people; telling them there is a system in place to oppress you, know
and understand your rights, bear arms to protect your neighborhoods from
pig brutality. After both Brown Berets and Panthers fell our children
were open to assault by this system, poor schools, no jobs, drugs. Then
record labels signed groups who furthered the system’s wishes singing
and rapping, “kill your own,” “sell drugs,” “it’s cool to go to prison.”
Regardless of tribe, set, race, if you are classified as Security Threat
Group (STG) you are on the same boat as me. STG is a Homeland Security
term for a domestic terrorist. First rule in war, identify your enemy.
We have been identified and classified as enemies of the state. What
else is there to be said? Are we to continue letting our self-imposed
politics disrupt reality? Such insignificant things and views like
colors and sides or race hinder our lives? They can stop one arrow not a
hundred. There’s nothing wrong with being part of groups, families, etc.
But it is wrong when those groups lose focus of the message and cause.
It is not okay to soak in the blood of your own people, period.
Learn from our oppressor, they are some cold operators, they understand
the power of knowledge and education. The ruling class in the United
States is composed of men and their families who use ivy league
universities and elite law schools as private schools for their
offspring and as training grounds for their corporate livelihoods. They
rule us with iron precision through the military, the CIA, the FBI,
private foundations and financial institutions. Their control of all the
media of education and communication comprises an extremely effective
system of thought control.
We must learn from someone who defeated this system. Ho Chi Minh
understood the power of education. His mandated policy for his warriors
and cadres was spot on. Fighting and violence is easy. You must have
balance. You must be able to read and write, be able to teach others and
most importantly fully understand and be educated in your political
paradigm and why you are fighting.
Chicanos in Colorado are currently in a struggle for our true history.
We hunger for knowledge because that knowledge has ended all violence
between tribes, shown us our common interests, not the blind mentality
of colors and sides. We are currently under assault by Colorado
Department of Corrections, not allowing us to receive our real
education, stopping all education or history on the concept of Aztlán,
Chicano unity, Mexica movement, claiming it’s STG. Since when is history
and education a crime? Well for us, always.
If there is to be a movement, then there must be leaders. Those leaders
must be judged by their ability to give not take. Leadership must convey
confidence, not egotism, one who sacrifices, not one who is an
opportunist. Leadership is the act of using power to free people, not to
control them. It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor
the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
MIM(Prisons) responds: The destruction of the Black Panther
Party, the flooding of cities with drugs, and the rejection of
literature on Chican@ history in prison are all manifestations of the
same system. This system seeks to peacefully control oppressed nations
by keeping them from learning about the history of this oppression and
the many examples of resistance. And when that fails it locks up the
oppressed, or even targets activists for death.
What can we do about this system with so much more power and resources
than we have as activists and anti-imperialists? The truth is our side
has more power; we have 80% of the world’s population, which is
exploited and oppressed by imperialism, on our side. The imperialists
are paper tigers, that appear fearsome, but in reality are propped up on
a fairly fragile structure of power.
That said, dismantling that structure will take a lot of organization,
trial and error. As this comrade points out, we need to focus on
education and fight to get true history into the hands of the oppressed.
And then we need leaders to step up and organize and educate others.
There is no special qualification for this leadership. Anyone who sees
the problems in the world around them can take up organizing others to
fight back. United Struggle from Within is an organization for these
leaders, and MIM(Prisons) supports USW organizers with literature and
resources. Get in touch today to get started with a local study group or
campaign against repression in your prison or elsewhere in the world.
