Scenes From BA Everywhere
Week of October 1
October 7, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
This is a regular feature that gives an ongoing picture of the multifaceted campaign BA Everywhere, and the variety of ways that funds are being raised and the whole BA vision and framework brought into all corners of society. Revolution newspaper is at the hub of this effort, publishing reports from the campaign, and playing a pivotal role in building an organized network of people across the country coming together to make BA a household word. We urge our readers to send in timely correspondence and photos on what you are doing as part of this campaign to revolution.reports@yahoo.com and baeverywhere@gmail.com.
Knocking on Doors to Raise Money and Make Connections
Around noon Saturday, as one of the BA Everywhere actions, a couple of revolutionaries stopped by an outlying proletarian neighborhood where we’re known. We took our bucket, BAsics palm cards, copies of the book BAsics, and went knocking on doors in apartment complexes. After a friendly greeting, we just said straight out: “We’re not religion. We’re not here about the elections. We’re here about revolution!” and then handed them the BAsics card with the Bob Avakian quote, “No more generations of our youth, here and all around the world, whose life is over, whose fate has been sealed, who have been condemned to an early death or a life of misery and brutality, whom the system has destined for oppression and oblivion even before they are born. I say no more of that.” We let them check it while one of us read the quote (1:13) from BAsics. We’d give people some space to share their thoughts on these words, and then did some interchange on this big campaign to get the work of this revolutionary communist leader out into the public discourse, so people know there is actually a way out of this mess that is the world today. Then we’d ask, “Want to put a donation to this campaign in our bucket?” and also, depending on what directions the discussion was going, asked, “Do you know other people we can bring this to?” and “Do you want to come with us?”
The first complex we went to was largely Latino. Every person who opened their door donated! We also got out Spanish editions of Revolution newspaper (Revolución), and handed people Lo BAsico (the Spanish edition of BAsics) to read the quote directly. The words got reactions, heads nodding and people saying things like “Yes, that’s what it’s like!” The next two complexes were a mix of immigrants such as Burmese and Somali, and also white, Native American, and African-American nationalities. The reception was similar. Not all, but most people donated! And we made some new connections. There were some language barriers with new immigrants, but once we told people up front what we were about, they were usually very open.
Donations were mostly not large, but numerous. In a couple hours, we found $47 in the bucket! And a good part of this time, of course, was spent talking with people and making connections. A young man who’d heard us talking to folks on the walkway came out and said, “Oh, yeah, this is the book I need!” and bought a copy on the spot. When we asked him, “Do you know other people we can take this out to?” he said many people he knew were talking about real changes being badly needed in this world, and the conversation concluded with us agreeing we meet up in the nearby park the next Saturday for a barbecue or pot luck, and get a session going where people can really get into the things being talked about. And so that’s what’s happening NEXT Saturday!
BAsics 3:22 at
University of Hawaii
When UH students hit the campus on the first day of classes in August, it was hard to miss quotes from BAsics posted on bulletin boards, doors, and walls. Centerfolds and back pages from Revolution were posted everywhere. One student said: “Whenever I spotted one of those [the centerfold] I would go over to read it. We need more of that!” Some said they especially liked the BAsics 3:22 centerfold (Issue #277).
During August more than 800 students also came to Revolution Books to purchase their texts. When they stepped into the store the first thing they saw was a big display about the BAsics Bus Tour, BAsics 3:22, and books exposing the oppression of women. At times the talk by Sunsara Taylor at the Revolution Books New York store was on the TV screen; at other times scenes from the bus tour. One of the store walls featured BAsics 3:22 Revolution newspaper centerfolds, along with hand-written messages “from the war zone.” Students were invited to add more. Some dropped coins into the “penny jar” with the challenge from Harlem to donate to the tour. [In Harlem, people brought their jars of pennies to donate to the BA Everywhere campaign and challenged others to match their donation.]
Several university students, who had come to the store during the week, attended a “speak-out” at the bookstore where women shared their personal war stories and dug more deeply into BAsics 3:22. While there was deep anger about the many outrages women face every day, getting into how that oppression is “bound up with the division of society into masters and slaves” and whether all-the-way revolution is possible was a whole new discussion and much more challenging.
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