March 22nd Virtual Study Session

Join RSP for a virtual study session of “Malcolm X Didn’t Dish Out Free Bean Pies.” We will hop on Signal to read in turn and discuss the article together. See the last session’s notes to catch up.

• Introductions
  • Head count: 4
• Reading
  • Started at paragraph “Besides pitching things to the intermediate,”
  • Ended at paragraph “The BPP’s breakfast programs also included an element”

• Notes, comments, etc.
  • Bourgeois government (Nixon! administration!) undercut BPP and YL community programs
  • Black politicians in office, Black studies in academia as a conscious counter-insurgency
  • Arms race against the bourgeois class by taking on these projects for mutual aid and food distro etc.
  • 1969 - first federal affirmative program by Nixon
  • Bourgeois social welfare (1930s New Deal and 1960s NGOes) based on imperialist loot and super-profits
    • “Just get a job”
    • Idea that increased participation in capitalism will “uplift” Black communities instead of increasing their exploitation
  • Mutual aid networks are not a replacement for the state! (bourgeois or proletariat)
    • Understanding relations of production, not just distribution
    • Understanding imperialism
• NGO as an ideology
  • As system codified in the late 60s, serves to turn activism into a safe, lucrative career
  • NGO thinking is hegemonic, and difficult to escape
  • NGO thinking views people as customers/consumers of services rather than as agents
• NGOism is prevalent in CPUSA/PSL/ACP
  • Reliant on grants/funding by the government
  • NGO workers are not even paid well
• Understanding the BPP’s actual tactics as well as their own internal political struggles
  • Mainstream Left understanding of BPP is extremely shallow
  • BPP did a lot of things including social programs, armed militias, robbing people for money, newspapers
  • Electoral vs. illegal praxis
  • Newspapers create jobs for people (reporters, editors, distributors)
    • Newspapers as tool of political discussion and developments
  • Revolutionaries create jobs in a similar structure to capitalist ones but the job is revolution
• BPP did armed displays of force first, then pivoted to community-programs later
  • Politicization of poverty, encouraging people to organize themselves and organized their own programs
  • Good PR, popularization
• Ex. Bay Area, poverty is worse than in Peoria, and was much worse during 60s/70s
• RSP
  • How to do political education, leaping from “the system is flawed and hostile” to “the system is actively waging class war on you”
  • Getting people to organize themself as to undermine the one-sidedness of NGOism