Free Shaka Shakur, a member-organization of the Indianapolis Liberation Center, first published the article below on May 4, 2024.
Listen to Shaka read the article
Introduction
Amerika has never dealt with its original sins of colonial genocide and structural settler racism; instead it has moved to placate, to pacify and co-opt New Afrikan/Black folks into its own structural system of oppression and neo-colonialism.
New Afrikan people represent an oppressed nation, an exploited nation—where the means of production and the ability to produce and sustain itself, the ability to meet the needs of its people and community—seized by a foreign entity. This genocidal seizure was to be in the interest of creating the amerikan settler state that later, on the surface, created this false impression of a multicultural democracy.
You don’t get to impose a constitution upon a conquered people. You do not get to amend a people into a constitution that you once deemed as 3/5th human. You do not get to impose a second-class citizenship upon a people and call it “freedom,” as if all has been forgiven and forgotten.
What is freedom for New Afrikan people?
Freedom for New Afrikan people represents Independence, Land, Autonomy, and the ability to be Self-Determining in creating its own destiny and National identity. It means being able to dictate and sustain the quality of life for our people. It means being able to not only govern Ourselves but create institutions that meet the needs of Our people, Our children, and have a direct impact upon Our material world/existence and the quality of Our lives.
Freedom means being able to reverse some of the negative social ills impacting Our community in the areas of healthcare, economic empowerment, and economical independence, where We are no longer contributing trillions of dollars into an economy that is controlled by a government that has proven not to function in Our collective best interest, A government where We see very little of those trillions reinvested back into Our community or Our people, especially Our children or youth.
Freedom means being able to put a stop to a lot of the reactionary and homicidal violence that exist in Our community. It means being able to stop and reverse the chemical and biological warfare being visited upon Our communities. It means ending and reversing the mass incarceration and current practice of harvesting and ethnic cleansing of Black and Brown bodies out of Our communities and processing them into the Prison Industrial Complex.
“We are revolutionary nationalists”
We are not separatist, We are revolutionary nationalists, which is different and distinct from Black nationalism or reactionary nationalism. As an enslaved people once deemed chattel slaves by the u.s. government, as a conquered and neo-colonized people based on international law, We were never allowed to declare Ourselves free and independent. We have never been allowed, through a legal entity or democratic process, to declare our Nationality and National Identity and have it recognized and binding on this government. Nor have we been afforded reparations to make up and atone for the 400-plus years of bondage, servitude, exploitation, and genocide perpetrated against New Afrikan people by this neo-fascist and neo-colonial government.
Therefore, We continue to wage the struggle of war and resistance for Land, Independence, and Socialism first begun by Our ancestors when the first settlers stepped off the boats and arrived on the shores of Afrika. We salute, champion, and continue that tradition from one generation to the next.
As I tune into the corporate-controlled media and I see all of these young people and others who have suddenly discovered that genocide not only exists, but is being perpetrated against the Palestinian people by Israel, I can’t help but ask: Do you not see the genocide that has been and is being carried out against New Afrikan/Black folks in modern day Babylon?! Genocide that is being carried out on the shores of the North Amerikan Continent?
We are Pro-Palestine liberation as We are Pro-Haitian, Pro-Darfur, and Pro-Sudan liberation. But We are also Pro-New Afrikan Liberation. You do not have to look outside of the u.s. borders to denounce genocide. You have wars and struggles of National Liberation right here on this north amerikkkan continent. The thousands upon thousands of native and indigenous people being wiped off of this earth, the womyn being disappeared and slaughtered from their communities that no one wants to acknowledge or talk about, for example. The tens of thousands of Black and Brown bodies being fed into the Prison Industrial Complex that prevent Our ability to reproduce or serve Our people and/or communities.
Revolution Starts At Home!!!
We Challenge You To Broaden The Struggle!!!
FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!!!
FREE THE LAND!!!
Shaka Shakur
ShakaShakur.org
