I first encountered the Revcoms through the May Day [May 1st, 2023] parade. It was a very fruitful event for me intellectually. I got to hear personal stories of a Haitian during the parade, who condemned U.S. invasions and interventions in Haiti starting in 1915. I also heard from Black citizens who refused to go to the Vietnam War, for “the true battle is against the ruling class and imperialism.” I heard people saying there is only one race and that is humanity. In the evening event at the Revolution Books bookstore that followed, I was invited to read a poem by a Gazan poet, who described the horrors and fears during an Israeli airstrike. People were really appreciative of my poetry reading, and I could sense solidarity in the air among people coming from some 10+ countries. It was really a fantastic night.

I was again invited to the Jordan Neely protest and funeral. I got to exchange views with other members of Revcoms, and learnt from Carl Dix that it is not a matter of building more mental health asylums, but the system driven by profit is fundamentally inhumane for young, Black people like Jordan Neely.

That perspective got me really interested in the larger ideology of the group. I did more research online about the Revcoms and Revolution Club, and one thing that resonated with me and with what Carl said was Sunsara Taylor’s critique of identity politics on YouTube: for immigrant children who are kidnapped at the border and working for big corporations, it does not matter that the person who suppressed exposure of this crime is Susan Rice, a Black female.

Bob Avakian said in a speech: with the same system in place, no matter who has the upper hand against whom, the horrible situation that some will oppress others will simply continue. We want to get to a world where there are no people who are up and no people who are down, no people who rule and no people who are ruled over, which seems to me to be true equality, more true than the Greek philosopher who envisioned the idea of equal citizenship of ruling and being ruled in his Politics. The same philosopher said different constitutions are distinguished by its ruling class and class interest; and Marx picked up on that and said the state is the violent machinery whereby the ruling class maintains its rule, and the ruling ideology in a state is the ideology of the ruling class. Along this vein, to change the nature of the profit-driven system, there is no alternative outside of a real revolution, revolution defined as the total change in the system based on the new constitution [Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian].

These events are deeply thought provoking and prompt me to acquaint myself more deeply with Marxist literature. I helped the group spread words by posting fliers and the Proclamation “We Are the Revcoms” on Columbia campus. I call on more people to donate to the fund drive to continue that debate and spread more words for the flames of a real revolution.