THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation of Humanity and the Campaign to Get @BobAvakianOfficial Everywhere took Bob Avakian's social media series on "A Profound Fight for the Soul of Black People: A Defeated People—Or, A Revolutionary People?" to the "Taste of Soul" festival in Los Angeles. Taste of Soul is an all-day celebration of food and culture in Crenshaw that brings together hundreds of thousands of Black people every year. Joe Veale, follower of Bob Avakian (BA) and former Black Panther Party member, spoke several times to the crowd. Over the course of the day many thousands heard our message and two dozen followed the @BobAvakianOfficial account.

This was a very pro-Kamala Harris crowd (although there were also some Trumpers in the mix) and our sign about "Stop following the BEB (Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit), start following @BobAvakianOfficial" was controversial, as was our agitation telling the truth about Kamala Harris being a mass incarcerator and a mass murderer. Many of the people who stopped at our table were those who hate Trump and Harris and are looking for something different.

While the day was characterized by a definite sense of joy and pride at being amongst so many Black people in a peaceful atmosphere, there were many expressions of a "defeated people" who have given up on revolution and just accept this system's "choices" and its putrid social relations—lots of religious slavishness about "leaving it all in God's hands," lots of patriarchal wanna-be slave master mentality (especially from the fanatical fundamentalist Black Israelites), lots of illusions about Black capitalism as the way to make progress for (a few) Black people. But when we brought people Bob Avakian's message about the revolutionary potential of Black people as emancipators of all humanity with a crucial role to play, and posed this up against what all too many people are caught up in now, this sorted out and attracted those who were more serious and many at least reached out for the flyer to learn more. A lot of people who stopped wanted to know who is Bob Avakian, and there was particular interest in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. There were also questions and objections to Bob Avakian for speaking about Black people, but not being Black himself. In response it was important to reset terms with what Bob Avakian's actually saying about Black people in the "unprecedented beauty" quote, and the fact that we've never had a leader like Bob Avakian before. And as we repeatedly emphasized:

If you are looking for someone who will tell you lies you want to hear, and pander to you—then stab you in the back—well, "BA is not your guy," and you need to look elsewhere: to the politicians of this system, and others who will play you and betray you. But if you want someone to tell you the truth and fight with you to rise to your potential as revolutionary emancipators—someone who is dedicated to leading a truly emancipating revolution that represents the way out of and beyond all this madness—then you need to seriously get into and take up what BA is doing, follow the leadership BA is providing, and become part of the growing organized force actively working for the revolution BA is leading.