NYC links the oppression of the African community to the colonial virus
New York City has been plagued by extreme violence in the already oppressed black and brown communities. The colonial virus’ latest manifestation through COVID-19 now has a variant that has threatened even more terror on the African community.
Many black people in New York are facing evictions while others are putting their hopes in the thought that a black mayoral candidate that seems to be designated to take the seat in the fall will be both willing and able to make their colonial oppression just a little bit more tolerable.
Now more than ever, African people need to come into political life. Our community’s conditions are only getting worse and a black mayor won’t save us. We need to take our faith out of this system and any black mayor savior and put that faith in ourselves. We need to organize to govern our own affairs and the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) is poised for self-governance.
We believe that self-determination is the highest form of democracy, and none of the existing political parties have any interest in providing our communities with the safety, security and economic development required for us to defeat the colonial virus.
When I say “colonial virus,” I’m talking about the virus of colonialism. Colonialism is the foreign and alien domination of a people for the purpose of economic exploitation and political advantage. It is to strip a people of all right to control their own lives and to rule them without regard to law.
Colonialism is the virus that our people have been suffering from for over 500 years and the only cure for it is overturning this system by getting organized. This is how we kill the virus. At the annual 2021 InPDUM Convention, we are charting a course for Black Power in our own black hands. The cure to the colonial virus is Black Power. Join or volunteer at InPDUM.org today!
— FYC, Vice-President, InPDUM New York City
South Philly needs power in its own hands
Kuende, President of the newly established Philadelphia, PA branch of InPDUM
The oppression of the African community of Philadelphia (Philly) has only gotten more intense in recent years as more casinos have been built throughout the state of Pennsylvania.
In 2015, Pennsylvania was dubbed the second largest casino hub in the United States. There are 14 casinos in Pennsylvania with a gross gaming revenue reaching 2.6 million dollars in 2020.
There’s a newly opened casino in South Philadelphia, turf clubs and bingo halls as well as an increasing amount of slot machines being placed in poor African communities. You can find slot machines conveniently accessible as early as 8am at the bodega—or as we call it, the “papi store”—in Philly. These stores, which the African community generally has to rely on for food, carry groceries that are often expired and deli meats that are occasionally rotten.
Another casino has recently opened in the deeply impoverished South Philly neighborhood of Kensington. The casino has recorded up to $13 million in revenue from their slots alone in one month.
Over time, we’ve seen these stores and institutions only contribute to the continued exploitation of the African community. These store owners, companies and corporations only take money out of our community without giving anything back towards the economic development of our community.
This situation won’t work. Our people are suffering while these corporations get richer, and the only way we can change that is by getting organized.
This is why all African people in Philly need to join or volunteer with InPDUM in order to learn about this oppressive system and get involved with the organization that will overturn it, put power into our people’s hands and change the conditions of our communities. Uhuru!
— Kuende, President, InPDUM Philly
Africans won’t accept neocolonial sell-out “leaders” in South Africa; we want real freedom
In Occupied Azania, also known as South Africa, Africans suffer from the worst poverty that is caused by colonialism. The majority of African people in Occupied Azania live in deeply impoverished communities. These communities, called townships, were designed as a reserve for African labor when the colonizers needed us to work for them.
Twenty-seven years after the end of apartheid in 1994 and the beginning of so-called democracy, the lives of Africans have gotten worse. Under this neocolonialist government, Africans are still landless, and the looting of our natural resources has not been hindered. Africans have no access to their land that was taken violently by the white settlers, and as a result, South Africa was called “the most unequal society” by “TIME” magazine in 2019.
I would like to make a call to Africans that InPDUM is about fighting for Black Power using African Internationalism—the revolutionary theory that recognizes that for Africans to be free, colonialism must be overturned, and the fight to overturn it must be led by the African working class. Join or volunteer with InPDUM to find out how we are fighting to complete the African Revolution by uniting the African Nation through organization. Only organized Africans under the revolutionary leadership of InPDUM will be equipped to fight for total liberation of the African Nation from Cape to Cairo. Uhuru!
— Zakhele Mkhonza, President, InPDUM South Africa (Occupied Azania)
In case you missed it, the 2021 InPDUM Convention took place September 3-5. It was livestreamed and you can watch it on-demand at youtube.com/uhurutv or facebook.com/InPDUM.
