Joka Heshima Jinsai, Founder of Amend The 13th
Our capacity to transform our communities from hotbeds of reactionary violence and criminalization to bastions of self-determination and self-sufficiency lie largely in our ability to transform the social attitudes of our People.
We have long known that a people’s social attitudes are a reflection of their social conditions. As Revolutionaries and social activists, we are often critical of the people’s social apathy and irrational responses to their oppression, without making a dialectical materialist analysis of the origin and etiology of those attitudes which are rooted in the U.S. fascist mass psychology. We then have the audacity to get frustrated when our solutions fail to find resonance among the people. This entire thought process is fundamentally incorrect. You will never find an effective solution to a problem you only partially grasp.
Amerikkka is the most advanced fascist state in the history of our planet. The people have undergone a contrapositive authoritarian conditioning process over the course of centuries. In the case of New Afrikans in the U.S., that process occurred under conditions of genocidal slavery, social containment, intentional underdevelopment and abject poverty.
The simple fact that, in spite of an enduring national policy of brutality and inequality against New Afrikans in Amerikkka, the vast majority of New Afrikans in the U.S. identify with the national identity of their historic oppressor, is all the proof one needs to validate the fact that our core psychology has been warped, and a people, we remain under the collective influence of the U.S. fascist mass psychology.
As long as our social circumstances continue to reflect the subordinate and repressed position we inhabit in the socio-economic and political hierarchy of the United States, our people will continue to view the delusion of the fascist mass psychology as an immutable reality, and the prospect of a genuine revolutionary transfer culture as the ‘fantasy’ of a few ‘radicals.’
As I’ve said on countless occasions before, our only hope of effectively changing negative social conditions is by pursuing the development of its opposite. This means the lion’s share of our time should be spent on implementing solutions to the practical problems of social life and survival faced by the oppressed man/woman on a daily basis.
The very process of coming together, analyzing, confronting and overcoming the contradictions responsible for our desperate conditions are themselves among the most liberating and empowering of actions.
This means creating new and sustainable community-based alternatives to feed, clothe, house, heal and defend ourselves, utilizing social cooperation, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics and social unity as our best, yet under-utilized tactics.
We are living in historic times. However, as insistently as we are confronting racist policies and symbols, and demanding changes in the state’s institutions – we must confront our own internal contradictions and demand of ourselves a change in how we engage in productive life.
Solutions to the vast majority of our problems will not be found in the state or any governmental institution – they will – they must – come from ourselves alone. In some communities we could come together and repair the streets and roads – and win the minds and support of the people wo use them; we could create alternatives to gang violence and tribal warfare, and win the minds and support of the people; we could create new collectively-owned businesses and job opportunities, and win the minds and support of the people; we could build affordable and sustainable housing solutions, and win the minds and support of the people.
This should be the entirety of our focus.
We know what is wrong and we know who is responsible. We don’t need to keep railing about racism, poverty, police brutality and mass incarceration. We have to start doing something about it, responding to it in a rational manner. In this set of circumstances and historical factors, revolutionary autonomous infrastructure is the only rationale course.
We are, and have always been, our own liberators.
The Amend the 13th National Agenda, rooted in the social cooperation of you – the people, is our contribution to this collective resistance. We feel it is not only imperative to abolish the legal basis of dehumanization by eliminating the legal slavery provision of the 13th Amendment.
– not only do we believe our communities can be better served by ensuring the strategic release of those imprisoned activists who have dedicated their lives to our communities’ service.
– not only do we believe social change can be galvanized through the direct demands of the people, but the backbone of our National Agenda is the development of Autonomous Community-based Infrastructure capable of diminishing the economic, social, political and cultural inequities at the root of our suffering. We call it: the Autonomous Infrastructure Mission, or A.I.M.
So long as the conditions of economic, social, political and cultural underdevelopment and inequality exist, the criminalization it breeds will continue to fuel the school-to-poverty-to-prison pipeline upon which the Prison-Industrial Slave Complex is based. It is our sincerest belief that the Autonomous Infrastructure Mission (A.I.M.) will make a meaningful and enduring contribution to shutting that pipeline down once and for all.
We have it within our power to forge our own food systems through the Sustainable Agricultural Commune (S.A.C.); to build our own jobs and businesses through the Closed-Circuit Economic Initiative (C.C.E.I.); to build our own science, medical and technological infrastructure through the New Afrikan Math & Science Centers Initiative; to educate and economically empower our youth to be active participants in their success through the Youth Community Action Program (Y.C.A.P.), and to defend, protect and heal our communities through these, and other Initiatives of the Autonomous Infrastructure Mission (A.I.M.).
By positively impacting the social conditions of our people, we can change their social attitudes, moving the prospect of genuine revolutionary transfer culture out of the realm of psychological improbability into the arena of practical application.
The primary motive force of the A.I.M. is leveraging our social cooperation to build new institutions which empower– not oppress, uplift– not down trod, to strengthen– not weaken – and to ultimately free- not enslave.
Now, more than ever, we have an opportunity to act. If you are serious about building, we need local coordinators for the A.I.M. This is our chance to do more than rail against racism and inequality – it’s our chance to respond to it affirmatively and effectively.
You can contact us by direct messaging the Amend The 13th Working Group on Facebook, and one of our facilitators will respond. I encourage you all to take this opportunity today to build the foundation for our future prosperity.
Until we win or don’t lose.
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