by Comrade Cheem, Chief Saint, and Chief Ali

After months of supporting and leading the protests in the street, Black Hammer Organization announced its largest project, Hammer City: a city for colonized people (people of color) only, with no cops, no Coronavirus, and no rent. But of course, the announcement attracted the usual haters and skeptics.

Some compared Hammer City to things like the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (aka Capital Hill Organized Protest aka CHAZ/CHOP) were mostly white protesters took over a few blocks in downtown Seattle and set up a camp for a few weeks to “resist” the police.

But the white leftists who set up CHAZ/CHOP were not colonized revolutionaries. They settled for having a “peaceful” occupation on Indigenous land, ended up shooting and killing two African teens, and eventually just let the pigs take over again.

Here are three reasons why Hammer City is completely different from CHAZ/CHOP.

1. Hammer City will have staying power, not just symbolism

CHAZ/CHOP at its core beliefs was only a symbol and not an organized and colonized people-led movement, therefore it did nothing to meet the long-term material needs of the colonized people. While the Hammer City campaign already has a leg up being that it is entirely run by the power of colonized people it has several other organizational strongholds to keep the campaign climbing to success.

Black Hammer knows that we need to continue our fight against this global system of colonialism and white supremacy if our communities are to survive.

For colonized people to have self-determination, we need control over our own land so that we can have dictatorship over our lives, labor, and resources. Since evictions, poverty, violence, and Coronavirus are threatening our communities, Hammer City is directly meeting the needs of the people and is not just a symbolic white anarchist protest.

Hammer City will not only protect against the violence from colonialism, it will at the same time create abundance in food, peace, and power for colonized people. By providing for and uniting the masses, Hammer City will have the means and strength to resist this colonial empire as it crumbles under Coronavirus and corrupt bipartisan leadership.

2. Hammer City will not have cops

Even if we take a quick cursory glance at US history and at the contemporary events of today, we can conclude that cops are not and never have been for the safety of the people. They exist to perpetuate the laws of this stolen land, on behalf of the elite who brought us into this system of colonialism.

Even though CHAZ tried not to have police within its borders, the white colonizers in there acted just as bad as the pigs when they decided to kill two African teenage boys who drove by the protest.

The white working whipping class is not on the same side as poor and working-class African and colonized people. Time and time again we see poor colonizers side with the pigs because at their core they choose colonialism instead of a life where no person lives at the expense of another – which is the ultimate goal of Hammer City.

In Hammer City, there will be no pigs because the people in Hammer City will be trained in self-defense to ensure their self-determination and dictatorship over their own lives.

Eventually, CHAZ/CHOP was so disorganized that the pigs had no problem clearing it out, once they got tired of the anarchists being there.

3. Indigenous Land Liberators vs White-led occupations

Another crucial contradiction we face today is that of land and the rightful owners to which it belongs. Hammer city seeks to return this land to said rightful owners with the creation of a special committee for this sole purpose; we call them the Land Liberators.

The Land Liberators have written a constitution to Hammer City and will be overseeing the liberated land directly. Chief Xiuh, a member of the committee, has stated that the purpose of the constitution is to “express our undying commitment to the liberation of all indigenous and colonized people under the stewardship of Turtle Island’s rightful inhabitants.” 

CHAZ/CHOP was modeled after Occupy Wallstreet, another white-led movement. These white working whipping class movements just want more money and don’t want to overturn colonialism.

Unlike them, Hammer City aims to directly overturn colonialism by returning the land to its original, rightful inhabitants.

While the first Hammer City will be in Florida and under the control of Indigenous Native Americans, Hammer Cities around the world will be under the control of the native inhabitants of those lands, and never the white colonizers.

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Through unity with the masses and good old hard work, Hammer City will be like none other that came before it.  Other things are just for show.

We need poor and working-class colonized people from all over the United Snakes to join us in building up power. A coming-together of skills from all walks of life, contributing to our project with one shared goal in mind; to liberate our peoples from the shackles of Colonialism which is at the heart of all the problems we face in this life. 

Learning from the past is so important because we are fully committed to fighting for the lifelong liberation of all poor and working-class colonized people worldwide. It is because of this that we learn even from liberal movements such as the CHAZ/CHOP white anarchist movement.

The mistakes of former movements teach us on how to move forward with the full potential of the colonized working class.

Land Back!