What comes after the fire — the failure of Black Lives Matter

By Chief Sante & Comrade Ellis, Black Hammer Times Staff

George Floyd. Finan Behre. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. Tony Mcdade.

These are only a few of the names of those who were lynched by the white nationalist state and it’s dogs.

Their names, like so many others, are sparks that have set the colonized masses’ hearts ablaze. Since the european invasion of the so-called “new world”, African and Colonized people in the united snakkkes have been fighting for power, for self-determination, and for freedom — the flames are nothing new to us. Once again, this flame has mobilized us, and brought us to the streets against a core issue: pig brutality.

We cannot let these flames die out again.

We cannot make the same mistakes that we made in Ferguson. It’s not enough for us to mobilize.

We need to get organized.

Black Lives Matter and the wave of liberal movements 

#BlackLivesMatter (BLM) is one of the great mobilizers from the Ferguson years. It’s a slogan that grabs at the hearts of colonized people. However, like all liberal movements, it has been co-opted by the state.

#BLM is nothing more than a hashtag. Performative outcries on social media, like posting an empty black screen, are just that. Empty. Meaningless. They do nothing to change the lives of Africans in a material way. So what is it all for?

Another hashtag, #blackouttuesday, which took over Instagram on June 2nd, was another deliberate tactic to prevent colonized people from getting real information about the rebellions happening across the empire. #8cantwait came out the next day. The hashtags were coming out so fast that colonized people across social media started to sniff out a pattern.

At the same time as we watch the 3rd precinct in Minneapolis get set on fire, someone shares a video of pigs kneeling with protesters, or hugging people. This is obvious propaganda from the state. The pigs are using every strategy possible to win Colonized people to their side.

It should be clear to revolutionaries that no matter how many shares or retweets your post gets, it doesn’t change the material conditions that exist outside of the internet. And it shouldn’t distract us from organizing to change those conditions. No amount of peaceful protesting, or shares on Facebook can replace that. It sure as hell won’t break our chains.

Mobilization vs Organization 

The fight for Colonized liberation has taken many forms, yet they all have one thing in common: violence. Colonialism can’t exist without it. This is a system that was built with violence, and is propped up all over the world with violence.

Colonized people, whether or not we prove how peacefully we can march alongside the pigs, get shot with tear gas and rubber bullets. We get dogs thrown on us. We get stomped on and kicked. There is no such thing as a peaceful protest under Colonialism because it was designed that way. There can only be organized violence, and disorganized violence.

There are no nuances under a genocide, other than the ones you choose to fabricate. Our solution is plain and simple. We are calling for Colonized people to unite, to break the system that was NEVER built for us, the system the was built on top of us. We cannot let this go on any longer.

In a system designed for one-sided violence, what could be more terrifying to the genocidal ruling class than the oppressed getting organized to fight back?

The move from peaceful to violent happens for a variety of reasons: built-up anger and aggression, unresponsiveness from those in power, betrayal.

Whatever their reasons during these recent protests, our African and Colonized siblings have been pushed to act hastily, and rightfully so. When there is a boot on your neck, you don’t have time to make clean decisions; when our people struggle to fight for their humanity, they recognize the need for rebellion.

There is a war going on in the streets of colonized communities, who are unifying around little else but their shared opposition, their hatred, towards the pigs. Spite is another reason to turn violent.

But spite does not make revolution.

Even a rebellion needs a plan. It needs a strategy. It needs discipline. The state has all of these, and has spent hundreds of years, and trillions of dollars to keep these tools out of our hands. The difference between us and our oppressors is that our unity, or organizational tools, must start at the liberation of poor and working class colonized people.

George Floyd. Finan Behre. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. Tony Mcdade.

These are the sparks. Liberation, the furious engine.

The reason the flame is dying is because its supply of oxygen is sustained by singular events, rather than by a core contradiction.

In order to stop this flame from dying, we must organize and raise our consciousness to a deepened unity and understanding for our liberation, that we must overturn the ultimate contradiction, which is Colonialism.

For the revolutionary, the flame never dies. It wasn’t sparked by a single issue, but by a series of issues stemming from colonialism.

We will avenge the names of all our murdered siblings. No one but the Colonized have any right to pass judgement on the outcome of that fight. We will get organized.

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