Opporcoonists: How Al Sharpton And Black Lives Matter Aim To Co-Opt The Mass Upsurge (2020)
Black Panther Red Star
THE PEOPLE RISE UP
The recorded lynching of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020, sparked hundreds of protests involving hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people across Amerika and the world. Uprisings that still continue weeks later.
These upsurges represent a qualitatively different form of struggle from the urban revolts that rocked the U.S. inner cities from 1963-1968. Although the ’60s revolts were also provoked by incidents of police violence, they were largely confined to poor Black communities, and much of the property damage was to structures in those communities.
The revolts of 2020, however, have involved people of every race and ethnicity, ranging from the poor and working class, to the middle class and intellectuals. Much of the property damage has been consciously directed at police and large corporate-owned structures. This struggle has definitely taken on the characteristics of class war: namely, the people versus the exploitative ruling class and its hired guns.
A PLANNED SEIGE ON WASHINGTON
Even before George Floyd’s death, the relatives of a number of people murdered by the cops were planning a massive siege on Washington, DC, to compel justice for their slain loves ones. They planned to bring hundreds of thousands of protesters to DC to shut the capital down.
The planners of this event included Lisa Simpson, mother of Richard Risher (murdered by LA police during July 2016), Chantel Brooks, mother of 15 year old Michael Wesley (murdered by Chicago police during June 2013), and others.
After being misled and having their losses and grief exploited by so-called civil rights leaders and attorneys, the Black Lives Matter org, and any number of politicians, these families elected to mobilize their demands for justice at the grassroots.
But among these aggrieved families, are some who follow and trust the misleadership of these civil rights opportunists. As a result the planned siege on DC was exposed to Al (the Rat) Sharpton, who had jumped on the bandwagon as spokesman for George Floyd’s family.
Sharpton, a career camera shark, opportunist shill of the Democratic Party, and known FBI informant, moved in favor of the system to subvert the planned DC siege, announcing on June 4 at George Floyd’s memorial service, that he was planning to lead a March on Washington on Aug 28, 2020, in commemoration of the August 28, 1963 Washington March that was led by Martin Luther King, jr.
SHARPTON’S MARCH TO SELL THE PEOPLE OUT JUST LIKE THE 1963 MARCH
Sharpton’s maneuver to take over the planned DC siege with a pig controlled march, is an exact duplication of how MLK was unwittingly used by the government to subvert what was going to be a grassroots siege in DC in 1963. The only difference is MLK didn’t realize he was being manipulated by the system, whereas Sharpton knows exactly what he’s doing. He knows the history.
Sharpton’s a spineless, career opportunist who will work with the pigs and undermine others to promote himself and save his own neck. He did it when, in March 1983, he was busted in an FBI drug sting, and opted to wear a wire to set up Black sports promoters and even Mafia leaders for the feds, to get himself off.[1]
Many people don’t know the real story behind the 1963 March on Washington where MLK gave his famous, “I Have a Dream,” speech. A story that reveals just how foul Sharpton’s move to subvert this newly planned siege, and rechannel the uprisings today, really are.
THE 1963 FARCE ON WASHINGTON
In his Nov 10, 1963 speech, “Message to the grassroots,” Malcolm X gave a blistering description of how MLK was used to subvert the 1963 siege on DC and contain mass unrest with a one-day government-choreographed march—readers are strongly encouraged to listen to or read Malcolm’s speech.[2]
In that speech Malcolm describes how MLK and several civil rights leaders who were struggling for funds were confronted by president John F. Kennedy, who became aware of the planned siege on D C, where hundreds of thousands of Blacks were expected to descend on the capital and shut down all transportation and government operations, by lying down in the streets and on runways, tying up Congress, etc., and not leave until the government solved persistent problems of racism, pervasive poverty, police murders and brutality in Black communities, and so on.
At the time Blacks were also active in the streets defending themselves against racial violence.
Kennedy wanted a halt to the resistence in the streets and to head off the planned siege. So he and his financial backers offered MLK and the other civil rights leaders huge sums of money, a seat at the table with the previously anti-Black Democratic Party and coverage in the mass media, if they agreed to take over the siege and convert it into a government-controlled one-day march.[3]
MLK and his circle agreed to the sellout, and it went over without a hitch. This is exactly what Sharpton is do in with his planned Aug 28 march, aimed at subverting the siege planned by the surviving families of people murdered by police. Families who’ve already been sold out by him and his kind, with the media giving his planned march wide mainstream coverage and not a single mention of the grassroots action it aims to replace.
The thing is, toward the end of his life MLK came to realize he’d been used by the establishment to undermine the struggle of the people against its abuses. So he planned a Poor People’s Encampment to occur during the summer of 1968, to lay siege to the capital, much as the 1963 grassroots movement originally planned to do. But the pigs murdered him only months before the encampment was set to happen.
BLACK LIES MATTER
On a par with Al Sharpton’s opportunism is the BLM org, esp it’s national office.
BLM reached national prominence on the back of the Ferguson MO protests, after the 2014 police murder of Mike Brown jr. BLM did nothing to end police murders, but instead co-opted the Ferguson protests and boosted the profitable careers of its national leaders. It also gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to police departments for body cameras and “unintended bias” training. Money that was used instead to expand the departments’ military arsenals and equipment.
The organization, like MLK’s circle of civil rights leaders in 1963, was brought to heel with tens of millions of dollars donated by monied interests like George Soros and others.
Worse still, is while BLM has received these huge sums, it has actively stolen money from and hustled the surviving loves one of people slain by the pigs.
One such case is Lisa Simpson. As can be seen in an Aug 2016 interview with her and Melina Abdullah, one of the original founders of BLM, BLM conducted a fundraiser in Simpson’s name under the guise of helping to pay her son’s funeral costs.[4] Simpson never received a dime of that money.
Other surviving relatives have had the same experiences with BLM, including Veda Washington, aunt of Alton Sterling (murdered by Louisiana police during July 2016), Chantell Brooks and others.
As uprisings spread in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, millions of dollars in donations poured in to BLM giving this discredited organization new life. BLM in turn moved in to co-opt the mass upsurge.
On June 8, BLM’s managing director Kailee Scales did an “Ask me anything” session on Reddit.[5] Questions poured in asking where all the funds are going, which Scales evaded. The session was a disaster and led to further inquiries whether BLM was involved in illegally funneling money to establishment political groups like the Democrats.[6] It was the Democrats that subverted the 1963 siege and has since acted to keep Blacks politically contained.[7]
COUNTERING THE PANTHER PROTEST MODEL
Before George Floyd’s murder, the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP) and United Panther Movement (UPM) were actively organizing mass protests against police murders, where the surviving families were given a voice and leadership over the protests, and the involved masses participated in people’s assemblies.
Following the police murders of Dreasjon Reed and McHale Rose in Indianapolis on May 6 and 7, the Panthers organized several rallies where the masses effectively took over the streets and left the cops unable to respond.
The Panthers contrasted their mass based leadership style with the local BLM’s attempts to dictate to the crowds, and won over the people. Indy’s BLM also led a group of protesters into a police ambush that the Panthers became aware of and warned BLM about beforehand. Ignoring the Panther’s warnings, the Indy BLM caused numerous protesters who followed them to be shot with rubber bullets and tear gas, while the Panthers led protestors to rally in another area where they were unmolested by the cops.[8]
Across Amerika people took notice of the Panther’s work. So too did the pigs. It was soon discovered that the pigs were maneuvering to infiltrate the Panther’s ranks in the wake of the Lynching of George Floyd and the Panther’s moving to give leadership to the mass upsurge, leading to the dissolution and reconstitution of the Indiana branch of the UPM, as BLM moved to co-opt the uprisings.
CONCLUSION
It’s certainly true that when we fail to learn history’s lessons we will relive them. Today’s maneuverings by BLM and Sharpton, repeat past historical experiences almost exactly.
It’s decisive that we learn from those lessons and prevent a repeat of the same tactics today that subverted our struggles yesterday. Was cannot trust turncoats who’ve already proven their sellout characters for all to see. We must fight them just as we do the state forces that are destroying our families and communities, because it is the interests of this racist oppressive state that they serve.
Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!
All Power to the People!
Endnotes
[1] https://nypost.com/2014/04/09/sharpton-at-annual-nan-meeting-amid-mob-rat-revelation
[2] Malcolm X, “Message to the Grassroots” Nov , https://youtu.be/IY39tp3LEKI
[3] Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “The Democrats are not Your Party: Confronting Black Political Confusions in an Election Year” (2020) http://rashidmod.com/?p=2756
[4] Jill Stein Talks With Melina Abdullah and Lisa Simpson Outside LA Town Hall, Aug 29, 2016 https://youtu.be.com/6_3tzPj-JCk
[5] http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gyzs79/i_am_kailee_scales_managing_director_for_black/Putm_medium=android_app&source=share
[6] Diego Marquez, “Is the Black Lives Matter Organization anMoney Laundering Scheme?” June 9, 2020. https://medium.com/@11abba4547e
[7] Op cit., Note 7
[8] Tyler Fenwick, “The Birth of a Protest,” Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper, May 30, 2020 http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/news/article/4f46b76c-a2a3-11ea-8614-c73f3f25ae2e.html
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