Author: J C Walker

So today I saw a video on YouTube, I won’t mention the name, from I prominent socialist/ communist youtuber. It was a white person, and they were talking about critical race theory (CRT). To my surprise, or maybe not, they were not for it.

Their reasoning was that CRT was a plot by the capitalist elites to divide the working class by race. While I agree that the elites have been using race to divide the working class, it was the white working class that were told that they were better and different from the black indentured servants. Blacks were made into permanent workers while the whites could work off debt and be free.

All throughout American history, black have been telling the white working class that we should all come together and take down the elites, but the white working class wanted no parts of it. The Irish were being abused by the British during the potato famine of the 19^th century, but when they fled to the United States, the first thing they did was to attack free blacks in the north in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. The Italians followed suit in Philadelphia and New Jersey. Very few times have the white working class came to lock arms with black people and those were individuals, not them as a group.

Now that the capitalist system needs to preserve itself and more and more people are being caught up in the same situations that black people have been in for centuries, now everyone wants to “put race aside” and “come together as the working class”.

Now that their communities are dealing with drugs, and crime, and they lost a lot of small businesses with the pandemic, they want to forget about race. Them and their ancestors caused these problems that the socialists and communists are complaining about by ignoring the problems of black people. We were the canary in the coal mine, but no one took notice.

If they would have listened to us in the 40’s 50’s 60’s 70’s and 80’s then the neo liberal capitalists would not have been able to take over the country. These socialist and communists think that these problems of capitalism just started with the 2008 financial crisis, or maybe back to the 1980’s. They are still wondering why black people didn’t show up to the occupy wall street movement, or why we didn’t turn out en masse for Bernie Sanders. By now what the white working class progressives call “late stage capitalism”, black people call Tuesday.

These white progressives are just as racist as any conservative when it comes to black people. Their rejection of critical race theory is just another example. They are ashamed of American history.

Now I will say that critical race theory is NOT about making anyone feel guilty, it is NOT blaming any individual white person who is not an elite for the problems in the black community. CRT is just about telling a more complete history of our country, but if some people are ashamed of such history then maybe there is a deeper issue here.

CRT is not the only thing, but the more and more I see, these white progressives are just like the neo liberals or the conservatives when it comes to black people. They just want the ignorant darkies to “Shut up and get in line”. Get behind what ever agenda they are pushing at the moment and don’t ask questions. Then when it comes to other demographics they get specifics, they do not get talked down to, they get money, and land, and bank loans, and no harassment from law enforcement, and they don’t even have to do much. They don’t have to be exceptional, they don’t have to be of a certain spiritual belief, they don’t even have to be citizens of this country, and the progressives love and respect them but for us nothing.

Good luck to these socialists and communists trying to bring down capitalism without the help of black people in the United States, because as it stands now,  organized socialism and communism in America is dead on arrival, oh well.

The need for community

                In these tough times, as people always like to say, there is a real need for community. We in the western world have broken down our communities over the last half-century. Some done by choice, some by social manipulation by cooperate elites. We don’t have the sense of community that our ancestors had. With this lack of community, we have become more selfish hedonistic and narcissist. Most have little or no empathy for anyone other than us and maybe our small social circle. I am guilty of this as well.

                To remedy this, I believe that we need to build our own communities again. Imagine what type of community you would like to live in and build that. I am not talking about a community built on others pain or enslavement. We need to get back to producing more of what we consume instead of going about like locusts. We need to care about the people around us, not just in our immediate circle but in society. We might think that the poor starving people on the streets or in other neighborhoods cities or countries have nothing to do with us, that they should “pull themselves up by the bootstraps”. We do not see the problem with a society that has so much wealth but there are people with nothing. We do not realize that we are all in the same society and we are only as strong as the weakest link. If we cannot provide the basics for everyone then our society is not that great. There will be further social unrest and instability if we don’t get a handle on these problems.

Most people are socialists and want the government to do something for them, but ONLY them. If socialism is used for the betterment of society as a whole, then people feel differently. This worked in mid-20^th century United States, but the corporate forces guided by the Powell Memorandum used that selfish mindset to take more power for themselves at our expense.

We cannot wait for the government, big corporations, or philanthropy from wealthy individuals. If that occurs then it will not be a real solution for the average person, it will just be another form of self-expression and control by the person or organization that funded it. We in the west worship wealth and capital, so the people who have those things are worshipped too. We expect those people to lead the way and do big things to make our world better and they will not, they can’t. No celebrity, wealthy individual, corporation, non-governmental organization (NGO), or government knows what you need. I’m not saying I’m perfect either. I’m guilty of a lot of this selfish thinking too. I was raised in this culture of selfishness, ignorance, and greed. A society where empathy is weakness, and violence and hording of resources are virtues. I’m working on it. I just believe that as we continue in this 21^st century, we will need to be more communal in the United States, and in a lot of the western world.

So, with this virus going around the world, and millions of people in quarantine COVID-19 more commonly called the coronavirus has changed our world in the span of a few months. With everyone talking about infection and death numbers, who is at fault, and the economic affects there is something that almost no one is mentioning. Our industrialized society as it stands now in the western world cannot and will not survive this.
The economic effects of this virus will kill a lot more people in the industrialized world than COVID-19. We live in an economic system where if people stop spending money even briefly the whole thing falls apart. With people in quarantine and businesses closed millions of people do not have money to spend which in turn causes more businesses to lose money and eventually close. Also 1/3 of American renters could not afford rent for April 2020. This has the potential to upset our society for years to come.
With all the people who are desperate and struggling only a few months into this, no one has any answers or help for the people. That is why we the people must come up with our own solutions because the government, wealthy people, or the free market will not get us through this in the long run.
Not to scare anyone, actually to empower people, the systems that we all depend on in the western world are breaking down. This COVID-19 is just another step in the decline. Intentional communities, ecovillages, communes, and transition towns will be viable options for human settlement in the future. This is not about going backward but going into the future in a way of our choosing and not to have a future forced onto us by others out of fear.
We need community now more than ever. We need to become producers not just consumers. We need to shorten the lines of production. Instead of going to the grocery store and buying food that is produced thousands of miles away we need localized options like backyard or community gardens. We need to look out for our neighbors and other in our vicinity because if they don’t have the basics then they will come and take what you have and no amount of guns or ammo will protect you in the long run. We need to learn how to do those skills that were common a century ago.
Since the end of WWII here in the west we have embraced a culture of materialism, hyper consumption, and hedonism. There is a myth in the United States about the rugged hardworking individual, the self-made man. Someone who earned their keep by the sweat of their own brow or who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. The idea of the individual will not work in the coming years and decades and we need to move toward a society of cooperation, and localized economies.
We need communities and not chase the myth of “self-reliance”. Most people in the western world are not self sufficient even if they grow their own food, hunt fish and trap, or live out in the country they ARE NOT self-sufficient. We have a strong central government that gives subsidies to farmers and ranchers, we have a stable currency for now, and most people are still supported by our government and big corporations to some degree. Those will be the forces that will enslave us in the future if we’re not careful.
If you were in a developing country in the global south, you would need a group of people to sustain yourself, the lone wolf self-sufficient prepper just doesn’t cut it. Historically people have banded together in groups to get through crises, those who go it alone don’t make it.
This is not about a left-wing vs. right-wing position, this is about saving people’s lives. The financial elites control both political parties, the media and information outlets, the religious institutions, the educational systems, law enforcement and the military, and the means of production. When times get very bad in the United States, they will not come to save you or I and will protect the institutions and anyone on the outside will be left to fend for themselves. We want to build community before it gets to that point.
In closing I want to state that we must have bottom up solutions to our upcoming problems that will come about from this COVID-19 in the coming years. We will have to (myself included), work with people that we may not like or agree with politically. We must look inside of ourselves and work on ourselves mentally and emotionally. The transition away from this culture of hyper individualism and consumption to a culture of cooperation and sustainability will be a battle of consciousness.

Until next time,

So, after a super Tuesday where presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden took a lead in the polls, a lot of supporters of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders are confused about the results. As a black millennial registered voter let me clear up the confusion.

Joe Biden’s super Tuesday success was NOT a result of overwhelming support from the black community. What happened was older black voters, who feel an obligation to vote and most to vote democratic. Black baby boomers, and the silent generation came out and voted in large numbers. They get their information from TV. That is the technology that they grew up with and the medium that they trust the most.

On the other hand, black gen X’ers, and millennials, and gen Z who get most of our news (for better or worse) from the internet, did not come out and vote. This is not true across the board but will give context for what is to come.

If you haven’t heard yet about it yet, there is the ADOS/FBA movement that is demanding an agenda specifically for us black Americans that are descended from chattel slaves in the United States. One of the main tenants of the movement is that black Americans should not vote for any candidate in the 2020 presidential election unless they have an agenda for us (reparations for slavery) among other things, also known as tangibles.

I have my disagreements with the movement, but I can’t argue with the basics. Other groups in this country have gotten legislation specific for their groups that others could not benefit from. Most recently President Donald Trump signed the Executive “Economic Empowerment of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders”. Legislation that is targeted at their community for their improvement and no other groups can benefit from that executive order. It is perfectly acceptable to do things for other specific groups in this country, but when you talk about doing that for black Americans that is political suicide.

I understand that Bernie Sanders does not want to upset too many moderate white voters, and others outside of the black community. He’s a populist candidate and he cannot upset too many people. He knows the racist history of this country and he knows that if he utters the word “reparations” then his political career is over.

In times past black Americans would just “take one for the team” as they say and just vote democratic or vote progressive and hope that we get something out of it. But after the presidency of Barack Obama, and the subsequent presidency of Donald Trump, combined with the fact that median black wealth is projected to be zero by the year 2053 (that’s 33 years from now less than two generations), black America has a fire under us not seen since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 60’s.

For all the progressive talk of these leftist candidates they still have not progressed far enough to combat this country’s greatest sin, the treatment of black people. From slavery, to Jim crow, to being locked out of the new deal, to the war on drugs, to the Iran contra scandal, to mass incarceration with the 1994 crime bill also called Biden’s Law. Combine that with a media narrative, and the cumulative effects and this is what you get. A disillusioned black youth voting bloc and an older dwindling black voter bloc still loyal to the democrats.

Just my two cents,

More on this later.

Ok so it’s been a few days since Mr. West said in a TMZ interview that the enslavement of Africans in the United States was a choice. As an African American who is six generations removed on my mother’s side and five generations removed on my father’s side from slavery, I have to comment on this (before the two week American news cycle delivers us more garbage and distractions). His reasoning for the “choice” was that in parts of the south the slaves had the numbers and that should have tipped the balance in our favor if there were to be an uprising.

On paper it all makes sense, the only thing that was needed was a slave uprising. There’s just one problem with Mr. West’s theory, there was a slave revolt, and not just one but many. There were slave revolts every year during the slavery period in the United States. Most were small and quelled within a few days or so, but they did in fact happen. The biggest and most famous of these was led by Nat Turner. This revolt had all of the makings of what you think of when slaves revolt against their oppressors, complete with a charismatic leader but in the end it was crushed.

 I was listening to a black radio show (I won’t mention the name of the show for trademark reasons), who was Hispanic and from Florida, that said that he agreed with Kanye for the reasons mentioned earlier in this post. One of the hosts then tried to ask about what he thought about the Holocaust, and the caller proceeded to say that that was a different situation. The male host then told the caller that he was ignorant and hung up on him.

I also saw a video on YouTube of a black man saying that he also agreed with Mr. West saying that “something about us Black Americans just means that we have no fight”. He mentioned that Haitian Revolution of 1794 and said that if they could do it then why couldn’t we. He also talked about modern day issues and why the black community in the United States is so messed up.

Before I go any further I will note that I am not Haitian nor do I have any family ties to the West Indies. So I may offend some with this.  As far as the Haitian revolution goes there were two big differences between that and any revolt in the United States.

One they took advantage of a malaria outbreak at the time of their uprising which weakened the small French and Spanish population but didn’t affect the Africans enslaved because they were from the tropics and were more immune to the outbreak.  It is important to point out that Haiti is in the tropics and is still affected by malaria like western Africa.

Two the island of Hispaniola did not have an large indigenous population that at times helped the Europeans preserve the system of slavery because it benefited them as well. In the United States some native tribes held slaves or just looked the other way when Africans were enslaved because it spared their people from bondage. There were also tribes that would catch escaped slaves and either kill them or return them to their plantations for a reward. This does not take away from what the Haitians did for their country and their freedom, (as well as for the Dominicans but we’ll leave them out of this).

All of this goes back to the idea that Black Americans are lazy and just waiting for a hand out. That we don’t fight for our rights or that we don’t do what’s best for ourselves, our families and our community. This is why you have so many people of other ethnicities, and even some of our own that agree with Kanye.

Now I will say that I have more respect for Black people in the past than I do for a lot of our people today, and we do have a lot of problems in our community that need more attention than a commander in chief singing Al Green at a press conference, but as far as black people not rising up and doing something about their conditions in the past that is a lie.

One last thing to note, to my fellow Black Americans I will just say learn your history and do NOT argue with people of other ethnicities trying to “prove” your worth, dignity or humanity. Others will probably always have something negative to say about us in the United States, but as long as we develop a positive self image about ourselves we’ll be ok. Trying to prove your worth to others and caring about their opinion of you is the definition of slavery by choice.

Thanks for joining me!

A Real Change

I just want a change. That’s why I’m writing this. A cultural change, a political change, economic change but I don’t know how to do it. I do have some ideas that is why I’m putting together this blog but I just don’t know. The point of this blog is to get my ideas out to others and then interested people could take my ideas and replicate them or improve upon them. I may not always be right, I might not always get my wording right, and there will probably (most likely) be inconsistencies, I just want someone to read this blog and think about it, seriously!

There has been increasing divisions in American culture brewing for the last decade or so. I believe that we have to address these divisions and try to keep from killing each other. A big problem that I see in today’s America is the way that we get our information. We suffer from confirmation bias. If we have an idea about the world whether it be about a certain group of people, another country, different spiritual beliefs, etc., we only seek out information that confirms our current notions. Very rarely do we look for information that might challenge our views or maybe even make us think about the world in a different way. Many people today with the use of social media get our information from very limited viewpoints. I was talking to an older man the day after the 2016 election, and he said that back in the 1960’s and 1970’s it was mandatory in broadcasting that there be a balance between liberal and conservative view points on the same station. My being born in 1989 and growing up with YouTube found this information strange and interesting. He was upset by the election and suggested that social media was polarizing the view points of the country.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton