Responses to a new statement by Bob Avakian:
"When Black people act, other people will act as well… I really like the idea of fighting to emancipate all humanity."
July 27, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Revolution newspaper and the revcom.us website have been featuring this new statement from Bob Avakian, BA. We are beginning to hear about people's thoughts on the statement, and this week we are running some of those initial responses. But we would like to hear much more! Send in your thoughts on the BA statement. Get the statement out to people you know and get their responses. Get discussions going in your crew, neighborhood, Revolution Club, bookstore discussion groups, etc.—and send in reports of what people say (send to revolution.reports@yahoo.com).
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"When Black people act, other people will act as well. Black people have played a crucial role in the '60s. I really like the idea of fighting to emancipate all humanity."
Black woman in her 40s
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“Black people have been treated like slaves under this system—living through the terrible things that were done to them. It will be a beautiful thing if revolution can happen and humanity can be liberated.”
Woman from Guatemala
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“That is so true. I mean the whole thing, but especially the part about all of humanity [pointing to the phrase 'fighting to emancipate humanity']. I mean, we all bleed red, right? But people don't understand that. They don't think about what it would mean if Black people—and actually everybody—stood up together.”
Middle-aged Black man
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"I think this is a very powerful quote by Mr. BA because it's an everyday way of life, for me it is. It's not just a reaction, it should be proactivity, daily, not just waiting for someone to get shot or for a mass murder or some other injustice. To understand that there can be a solution, because I don't have an answer, it's worth supporting the cause. I'm tired of the band-aid fixes, it's a society of band-aid fixes. Look at medicine, the doctors don't cure, they treat. This has been going on, the injustices, since and before. The quote says there is something that can be done to end it, not just go out and protest. It has to be a concerted effort, total effort among the masses."
Revolutionary humorist
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"...the quote for me personally was a strong quote that tells the truth. The quote for me personally was talking about Black community, but also about many other races that have suffered for thousands of years since the Europeans colonized here. It tells the truth too because the part where he says, 'to put an end to the long night in which human society has been divided into masters and slaves,' we see that today the masters are the people who have more power and more money and the slaves are the people who don't have a voice to stand up and that are struggling with money and where he says how the system has exploited and dehumanized Black people and terrorized them in thousands of way is also true from the beginning when they kidnapped Africans and brought them to the U.S to be slaves and how now with police brutality towards the Black community, but also towards the races that are looked down upon. I also like how he is basically saying that the Black community and all the other communities that have suffered from oppression, racism, sexism, etc. will arise. That's my view on the quote."
16-year-old high school student, volunteer at a Revolution Books store
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“I agree with this—it is really heavy. It has all the ugliness right there, and it says that can bring out the beauty. I think something beautiful I’ve seen is more white people backing up Black people. That is beautiful.... We do need a revolution, but how?”
Young Black man
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"This quote speaks to a lot of the beautiful uprisings in the recent past, but then you see that they’ve always been crushed and then we’re still facing the same system. Now we can see the real potential to end it. You have this new synthesis that speaks to the uprisings in past revolutions, but it talks about how to finally put an end to the system. Things could be taken a lot further, there’s a strategy to not just get rid of one thing, but to end all forms of oppression."
Revolution Club member
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"I like it. I like everything about it. Growing up in the South, it is my reality. Especially the part where he talks about '…the long night in which human society has been divided into masters and slaves…' I grew up in Alabama when George Wallace was governor and I worked in the cotton fields, I know."
Black woman
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“It’s time for us to take a stand. We’ve been too long in this ‘long night.’ People of color have been oppressed for thousands of years. That’s enough.”
Black woman in her 30s
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“You should circle that word 'dehumanized' in red, cause that's what has happened to us, that's what happened to me. I have been dehumanized—at least they tried, but they didn't succeed. Then people would be drawn to read the whole quote because they understand 'dehumanize.'”
Older homeless Black man
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“This 'unprecedented beauty'... just saying it like that is so rare—for so long, African-Americans have been put down and cast in the most negative of ways."
Black woman
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"In any society, both beauty and ugliness exist. Both battle each other, remaining in an everlasting war that must be fought, without one the other would not exist. In our current society, and most previous societies, ugliness exists in innumerable but visible forms. Although this ugliness may completely blind us, may drain the hope out of us, may seemingly 'overcome' us. We must not forget that beauty lurks under the thin gossamer of ugliness, and even this beauty can be found within what is ugly. The way our society, government, majority has treated Black people is truly ugly and vile. But this treatment allows an unfound knowledge of the perversion of the system and a passion/will to end it. The Black population within our country is one of the last outlets (in my opinion) of legitimate, passionate revolution. This pure ugliness, the mistreatment of the Black population, can truly be turned into something beautiful."
High school student
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