Recent years have seen a resurgence of right¬wing violence, such as the Charleston Emmanuel AME massacre and the shooting of protesters in Minneapolis. How should we orient ourselves to this rise in violence?
The AME massacre and other violent right wing attacks have dispelled the myth that racist white violence against black people is no longer a problem in this country. If Dylann Roof’s goal was to divide class unity it ended up doing the exact opposite. It galvanized popular support against systemic racism culminating in the take-down of the Confederate flag from the state capitol. If anything the only forces that became divided from that moment on were Roof’s own reactionary allies. This is not to suggest that neo fascist groups should be taken lightly. Indeed, even here in the liberal white capital of America we call Minneapolis we have come under attack from white racist reactionary youths whose paranoid and irrational fear of what they call “melanin rich communities” threatened to undermine our own internal unity. When these reactionaries attacked our encampment at the 4th precinct and shot 5 unarmed protesters it proved without a hint of doubt just how dangerous neo fascism can become if not confronted immediately. After this the community became much more serious about perimeter security. Fascist elements would attempt to probe the encampment but were never allowed to come close and if identified ahead of time were chased off by self organized patrol squads. This is just one of the many kinds of self defense models that POC communities should emulate and is being pushed forward by revolutionaries not only as a popular political concept but as a way of life. When our communities are under attack from so many different directions it is the only logical response. The recent rise in fascist violence revealed another thing to us. While radical revolutionaries enjoy some degree of popular support in our fortified urban areas we have virtually no presence in the more rural areas of Minnesota and beyond. If the current trend continues where revolutionaries remain confined to the cities and the fascist hold support in the rural expanse we can never hope to destroy racism completely. Undoubtedly there is much ignorance and fear in reaction to the concept of racial justice. White lower class people are especially susceptible to this line of thought. Therefore we believe that smashing the reactionary racist right absolutely depends on how we orient ourselves to political struggles happening in the rural communities of America. While this may be a scary proposition to some, comrades should remember that our recruitment pool is bigger than theirs and steadily growing while theirs grows smaller. We have to take advantage of that fact now and begin building coalitions with our class allies in the rural expanse both to deny the fascist their organizing base as well as to protect our own people from fascist attacks. Only unified city and rural class solidarity can defeat fascism for good.
http://thresholdmag.org/2016/02/22/afri ... apolis-mn/
