Some Vignettes from the Van Tour
September 1, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
This report is from volunteers involved in one of the REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! Van Tours in August, which took place in four areas: New York City, Chicago, San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles:
On the first night of the tour, before we started the weekend, we pulled up in front of a row of shops in an oppressed neighborhood and played the DVD from a large-screen TV in the van. This is a neighborhood that’s been at the heart of a lot of the protest to the unjust murder of Trayvon Martin in this city (and an area where the Revolution is known). With our decorated van we played the first hour of BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! It was a Friday night and people from the neighborhood, mainly youth, were walking to and from the corner market and/or smoke shop. Over the course of that hour, five people stopped to watch 10-20 minutes of the film, all but one of them youth.
A Black youth on a skateboard watched 20 minutes and then was about to roll away. One of us called him back over to talk and asked what he thought of it. He said he thought BA was funny. We asked him what he meant by that and he said he’s just funny. At first his attitude towards what he saw was kind of shrugging it off—he did think BA was funny (in a good way), but he wasn’t taking the talk too seriously. We started to get a little deeper into his thinking and he liked what BA was saying about religion—he said he likes science and is an atheist. He also sees religion as one of the main reasons why most people won’t get with revolution. This is part of why he wasn’t taking this too seriously at first, he had already concluded there’s no possible way you could go up against this system and that people could be brought forward to do that. We told him it’s good he likes science, but when he’s saying it’s not possible, he’s not being scientific. We told him about how BA in the next track after the one he was watching goes into the sweep of human history and shows that there isn’t permanence to the way things are now and it’s not because of human nature. We talked for a while, about how to see the contradictions within the system that can give rise to revolution, about how people start to change how they think—including what BA says later in the film about how a lot of Black people were giving up religion in the 1960s because they had hope they could change the world. And we talked about the dynamic of people coming into the revolution when they see it is the only way to fight for the things they want to see happen—even if they still have a lot of disagreements, and how this is related to forging and growing a core, now, of people who are taking up this understanding all the way with their eyes set on the goal of emancipating all of humanity.
The discussion had gotten more serious.
But in a certain way he was still looking from the outside in at this revolution.
Then we posed to him the difference it would make for hundreds of people right now in this city to watch what he’d just seen, and this happening all over the country—how that changes how people think and what they think is possible. His face kind of changed. He thought it would make a difference for people to see this and we worked through the possibility of him bringing some people he talks about serious things with to come to one of the scheduled screenings to watch it.
We talked briefly to two Egyptian guys who work in the shops there. We had brought a couple copies of the talk from Raymond Lotta about the massacre in Egypt and gave them copies to watch. The debate was impassioned. One argued fervently that it is the Muslims who are doing terrible things and the Egyptian army is on the side of the people. He is a Christian and described Christians being attacked including experience he’s had with this in his family. We told him people are being played in a rivalry between two opposing oppressive forces and there is another way, that what is needed urgently in Egypt is genuine leadership for communist revolution there. He insisted there had already been a revolution and what’s happening now is part of it. We insisted he and his friend need to watch that talk by Lotta right away and we will come back to talk about it.
He said 30 million rose up in Egypt, that is a revolution.
We said 30 million people can be wrong and he did a double-take and looked at his friend, as if he couldn’t believe what we’d just said—then repeated it to his friend.
His friend said he will watch the Lotta piece and wants to talk afterwards.
We took a break and went to a nearby grocery store to pick up some things for lunch. As we were wandering the store, a few of us stopped to look at the books section. We were asking each other about one of the authors and a Black man in his fifties looking at books turned to us in surprise and said, “You don’t know who that is?” We asked him to tell us and he talked about a series of novels about chasing a terrorist around the world using spy technology and know-how acquired from the CIA. We asked him what he thought about this in the context of all that’s been revealed by Edward Snowden. He talked about another series of novels by another author that unfolds plots around government conspiracies.
We began to talk with him about what the CIA actually does in the world and the way in which culture shapes how people think. He knew some things about the crimes of the CIA and had some agreement with what we were saying about what’s in the culture. He said he didn’t think authors like this were doing it consciously, but they write what sells books—so these kinds of books are now all in the language of chasing terrorists.
We talked about how important it would be to have much more culture that challenges all the police-state repression instead of going along with it and reinforcing it. He liked that a lot and we finally introduced ourselves and told him about the van tour and who BA is. He was very intrigued about BA and about the film and was interested in coming to a screening.
We would introduce ourselves as volunteers of this van tour and began talking about revolution, many liked it and many disagreed and didn’t want to discuss it, including a church group that we spoke to, one woman said, “Let's leave it all up to god he is the one with the last word” to which we responded “NO! it's in our hands” as we showed her the "Three Strikes" poster and said, “Are we going to keep letting this list get longer? We need to put an end to this and it's on us to put an end to this shit!” She ignored us and kept talking about god so we went on, but this group was very rude to us and kept telling people around them not to listen to us, to which we responded, “People can think for themselves, you don’t need to tell them what to do.”
We spoke to a group of Spanish-speaking women, one of us began to explain what Revolution newspaper is about and why it’s very important in this movement for revolution. They were interested when we spoke on the situation of immigrants in this country; we used what BA said in the film about how the situation of immigrants reminds him of the situation of slavery back then, how it separates families when one of the family members gets deported, we also spoke on the oppression of women and the oppression of Black people and we asked them to imagine a world where women, Black people and Latinos can walk down the street without the fear of getting killed, raped or brutalized. They liked that and asked us for the paper and gave a donation. One of them told us that she really appreciated what we were doing and that she felt scared for our safety because she knows that people who are about revolution and communism are not liked by the people who run this system, she told us about her son who recently flew in from Mexico wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and he was harassed by the airport police, they opened his bags, checked everything he had and asked him if he was a revolutionary, he had to say he didn’t know what the T-shirt represented because he didn’t want to get harassed any more.
So she knows that by us being about revolution we are risking ourselves so she was very thankful and happy that there is a movement that is for revolution and isn’t backing down.
We spoke with a woman that was with two other women, but the two other women didn’t want to be part of the conversation—one said she didn’t want to talk about politics because people always disagree with each other and end up arguing. At one point we said we are atheists. The woman was open and asked a lot of questions. So according to her beliefs the nervous feeling people get in the gut has something to do with their soul... we responded that we don’t believe people have a spirit or soul so one of the other women overheard this comment and got defensive. She tried to give an example of why she believes in the soul and the afterlife. She said, “Do you believe that there is life beyond the womb?” We responded, “Yes, obviously.” She responded “Ok, well it’s the same thing, they are wondering if there is life beyond the womb and there really is so it’s the same thing here.” Which we responded, “No, it isn’t, who is 'they'? And 'they' don’t think, they are fetuses!” She got angry and walked away and pulled her friend away with her. But her friend was very interested in talking to us and was very open to the discussion she had with us even if they had different ideas.
We spoke with a progressive middle-aged Black accountant. Upon seeing the "Three Strikes" quote he said, "I know this: Dred Scott, Emmett Till, and Trayvon Martin." We made it a point to read the quote and in particular the last two paragraphs til the end. It made him stop and rethink—we talked about a number of things including the "big" questions that he's been wrangling with but has had no answers to. He talked about the role of the military and its enforcement of capitalism; as he's describing the role of the U.S. military in Egypt (funding arms). Because of his job he reads conservative business journals and at a basic level sees the workings of this system but then is confronted with how to make investments. He listens to NPR and is struggling to see the possibilities of something else. At one point, he brought out his copy of Cornel West's Race Matters which he was very proud to own. We asked him to watch the first 15 minutes of Revolution—Nothing Less but he couldn't...so we read quotes from the back of the DVD cover: in particular, BA's quote from the film and Cornel's introduction to BA. He was very intrigued—we suggested he get a copy of the film because all the questions he's raising and wrangling with BA gets into: not only how to understand the world but how to radically change it (including the real possibility of not continuing to live this way). We ARE Building a Movement for Revolution and said even while he's walking through all his questions, agreements, and disagreements—there's a need for him to get into BA. He got a copy of the DVD, and while we raised the $500 challenge we reiterated that as he's watching the film to think of the impact it can have if millions engaged what he's engaging. And on that basis, deeply consider donating a large sum to the movement for revolution. He gave his business card to follow up with him.
While in this area, one Spanish-speaking woman didn’t say much but was listening to us as we explained what the “three strikes” poster was about, all the crimes of this system, the purpose of this van tour and the importance of this film. We gave her an issue of the paper, then she went inside her house and came out with a $20 bill.
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