We have to organize to build a world beyond the limitations of bourgeois politics and capitalism.
The election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris brought with it tears of relief. The bands marched, children laughed, and the cow jumped over the moon. Of course, we must celebrate––“Fascism has finally been kicked out!”, they exclaimed, as Biden ordered more airstrikes on Syria. Sighs of relief could be heard all throughout the U.S. at the thought of not having to worry about what “crazy” thing the president is doing, while African communities like Jackson, Mississippi, are left without water for weeks. Biden would not be in office without the Black community, yet all we got was a bunch of empty promises and four more years of fascism.
Africans are still being hunted like animals by cops and are subject to living in ghettos, while the bourgeoisie only gets richer. The need for oppressed communities to organize is a matter of survival. The ruling class has made no secret that it has no interest in improving the conditions plaguing society. This comes as no surprise, their power within the U.S. empire is dependent on the exploitation and suffering of the masses all over the world. This indifference has never been more prominent, capitalists like Elon Musk are publicly rallying people around the idea of colonizing Mars. If the oppressed wait for the ruling class to have a change of heart and fix the conditions they created, the next generation will inherit nothing but a desert!
The empire and its superstructure have misled the masses into thinking their power is vested in bourgeois, electoral politics. The media apparatus constantly bombards us with images of the U.S. military’s technology. Academia consistently reinforces Eurocentric labels like “minority” on non-European communities. Kwame Ture, the revolutionary pan-African organizer, often told us:
“The capitalist system doesn’t lie some of the time. It lies all of the time. In fact, even when it tells the truth, it’s only because of a double lie.”
The people’s power is not in their vote; their power is within themselves and their level of organization. The civil rights era did not gain reforms because of politicians. It gained its power from the mass mobilization of oppressed people that put pressure on elected officials to sign acts like the civil rights bill. To force the ruling class to make even simple reforms, it took the alliance of all oppressed people.
We have to organize to build a world beyond the limitations of bourgeois politics and capitalism. Capitalism is what got us here in the first place and it will not get us out. Like the late Fred Hampton famously said:
“We don’t think you fight fire with fire best; we think you fight fire with water best. We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity. We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism.”
A socialist society is the only way to free us from the grip of the ruling class. Socialism is the antithesis of capitalism. Instead of the resources being allocated to only the rich, the masses of working-class people are given resources. A system where people govern themselves without the need to wait for some bourgeois politicians who have not stepped a foot in their shoes.
As places like St. Louis county resume evictions during a global pandemic, it is evident that unorganized oppressed communities will suffer at hands of the bourgeoisie. People with organization are powerful, but those organizing around the goal of liberating the masses of oppressed people from their exploitation under the capitalist system, and the building of a new, socialist society – they are revolutionary.
Join an organization! We are our own liberators! If we want to live in a world free from exploitation, racism, sexism, homophobia and all the other contradictions exacerbated under capitalism, we must organize and create it ourselves. If we continue to sit and wait for elected officials to build this world for us, then to put it in the words of Joe Biden, “Nothing would fundamentally change.”
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