The revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (BA) recently challenged the ugly rise of hateful immigrant-bashing among Black people in an uncompromising social media dispatch titled “Black People Hating on Immigrants. Nonsense and worse from people who should know better.” Everybody knows of the racist lying rants, threats and actions from Donald Trump and his fascist MAGA movement viciously targeting migrants and asylum-seeking refugees. What many don’t know is how these fascists are organizing in Black communities and how way too many Black people are taking this poison up.

On September 8, these Black MAGA fascists and a crew of narrow, reactionary Black nationalists tried to violently break up a public discussion of Bob Avakian's messages at the Revcom Center on the South Side of Chicago. They tried to bum rush the front of the room by punching, shoving and threatening worse, but the revcoms united the audience to usher them out of the Revcom Center. In the days before this assault, these bootlicking Black Trumpers ranted at the local City Council meeting and demanded that official action be taken against the revcoms. And all this took place amidst a shitstorm online. Over the last few weeks and continuing to now, all kinds of lies, slander and character assassination has been spread against Bob Avakian, that he is some kind of "racist," with some posting outright threats. Some of this poison has gone viral in the fascist internet echo chamber, with some things reaching beyond. Some of these anonymous online pigs have tagged federal police agencies. 

These scurrilous bullshit attacks aimed at Bob Avakian cannot be tolerated. This must be forcefully condemned by everyone who cares about a just future for people here and around the world. We know from the history of ugly attacks on revolutionary leaders where these kind of divisive counter-revolutionary lies and threats can lead.

We call on people from all walks of life to defend Bob Avakian. The stakes:

What is the argument that Bob Avakian puts forward in his social media message #73 that has struck such a nerve? Everyone should read his full message. Here we will quote just a portion of what he says in that message. He begins: “One of the most maddening and heartbreaking things these days is to hear Black people, who have suffered so terribly under this system, hating on immigrants—talking about how immigrants are supposedly taking jobs and resources that should go to Black people and ruining neighborhoods where Black people have lived for generations.” After describing how this echoes the terror that Black people faced from white racists when they tried to settle in the north in the period after World War I, Bob Avakian asks: 

So, I have a question for any Black people today who are caught up in this hating on immigrants: Do you really want to be like the rabid white racists?

Or, do you want to put an end to this madness—that you, and the immigrants, are being put through?

It is this system that has put Black people through hell for centuries and is still putting Black people through hell.

Later in his message, Bob Avakian lifts people up to be, and to do, what needs to be done:

Instead of being played to hate on and fight against each other, all the people who are oppressed, exploited, misused, abused, tormented and terrorized under this system—and all people who really care about justice—need to unite to rise up against, and put an end to, this system that is the cause of all this madness, injustice and atrocity.

We are living in a time when it is possible to carry out a revolution that can put an end to this system, and bring into being a radically different and much better system where the fundamental needs and the highest aspirations of people for an emancipating, uplifting way to live can become a reality. All the outrage that people feel, and all the hope and striving for a better way, needs to be dedicated to and focused on working to bring about that emancipating revolution.

At any time, racist ugliness that is spewed against immigrants does harm and divides oppressed peoples who should be uniting against this system. Right now, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The country, deeply divided, is moving rapidly towards an election where everything is potentially coming up for grabs with the threat of violent conflicts and even talk of civil war in the air. Bob Avakian alone has recognized that, within this sharpening situation that holds terrible danger, there is also the rare possibility for revolution. Bob Avakian has developed a strategy, a way to prepare the masses of people to seize this opportunity. We live in a moment that requires all who have suffered so much under this system to unite and work for this revolution now. Part of doing so means defending Bob Avakian. 

While the accusations and slander against BA are ridiculous, they also do serious harm. Those spewing these lies have no idea who Bob Avakian is—a revolutionary leader who has dedicated his life to developing a scientifically based theory, strategy and program for revolution aimed at freeing people everywhere from every form of oppression. And too many others broadly in society are ignorant of this. 

Recognize and defend what we have in the leadership and the road forward that BA provides: 

Who else, besides Bob Avakian, has refused to give up on the emancipatory hopes of revolution that burned over America’s cities in the 1960s and instead took the precious lessons of those times and the previous revolutions to forge a whole new and much more liberating vision of revolution?

Who else, besides Bob Avakian, never gave up on analyzing the deep roots of Black people’s oppression in America and what it would take to really get free? Who, besides Bob Avakian, did all this as part of making revolution, leading revolutionaries to build organization and struggle against lives stolen by police in the1980s and 1990s under cover of the war on drugs? Who else saw before anyone else the rise of Christian fascism, its roots in the system and sounded the alarm? 

Who else, besides Bob Avakian, kept learning from and grappling with the precious lessons of previous revolutions paid for in blood—to come up with a new synthesis, a new communism? Who else forged a way forward to identify and solve the problems of those revolutions so that now we could not just seize power, but create a truly emancipatory society that people would want to live in?  Who else, besides Bob Avakian, has fought hard that a movement for revolution must not be about the first shall be last and the last first, but for a world without “firsts” and “lasts”? And who else, besides Bob Avakian, has concretized all this and more in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a whole new, and radically different way to organize society?

Who else, besides Bob Avakian, consistently acts as the real best friend of oppressed humanity—the one who talks truth to you when you’re going off course or fucking up, because he knows you’re falling short of what you’re capable of?

WE CALL ON EVERYONE who hates the way that so many are oppressed, terrorized, dehumanized, exploited, and denied a decent life under this system to SPEAK OUT AND JOIN IN STANDING UP TO THESE FASCISTS, THEIR ATTACKS ON IMMIGRANTS, AND THEIR MOUNTING LIES ABOUT AND THREATS AGAINST BOB AVAKIAN AND THE REVCOMS.

We will let this statement from Bob Avakian speak for how he sees the potential of Black people: 

There is the potential for something of unprecedented beauty to arise out of unspeakable ugliness: Black people playing a crucial role in putting an end, at long last, to this system which has, for so long, not just exploited but dehumanized, terrorized and tormented them in a thousand ways—putting an end to this in the only way it can be done—by fighting to emancipate humanity, to put an end to the long night in which human society has been divided into masters and slaves, and the masses of humanity have been lashed, beaten, raped, slaughtered, shackled and shrouded in ignorance and misery.

Send your statements of support for Bob Avakian and the revcoms and reach out to get involved by emailing: getorganizedforrevolutiontour@gmail.com
 

This is the full social media message REVOLUTION #73 from Bob Avakian: