UCLA, Wednesday night—over 125 students, professors, and others gathered to hear Sunsara Taylor speak on “Woke” Lunacy vs. Real Revolution.  This was the first mass public program in a big fight to break people from thinking and acting on the terms of this system.

The flyer calling people to the event said:

“Wokeness” and cancel culture pose as the answer to this system’s injustice, to white supremacy and gender oppression. But this is a FRAUD! Sunsara Taylor will rip the veil off this whole framework, showing how it evades, misdirects, and does great harm to the struggle that is urgently needed. She will dissect its theoretical premises and bring first hand experience, as a leader in the fight for abortion rights, of its toxic effects.

Sunsara Taylor, who bases herself on the new communism developed by Bob Avakian, will speak about why this capitalist-imperialist system must be overthrown in order to uproot & abolish all forms of oppression, why “inclusion” and “safe spaces” within this system are NOT the answer, & why YOU need to be part of this revolution.

For two weeks leading up to the event, a group of revcoms were an unignorable presence on the scene at UCLA every day spreading the word about it, provoking and challenging people to come. The week of the event, flyers, posters, and big displays started going out all over campus with a razor-sharp 7 Point Indictment: “Woke” is a destructive force in the political, intellectual, artistic and ethical life of society.

In the last couple days, the buzz about the event was building. Students were debating it on Reddit. Haters were crumpling up flyers. Students and professors were discussing it among themselves. People were googling Sunsara Taylor. A grad student wrote an op-ed about it which the school paper wouldn’t publish. Professors invited us into their classes to make announcements. Students and faculty were quietly telling us how glad they were to see this “woke” shit finally taken on. More and more people were saying “I’ll be there.”

The night of the event brought all kinds of people: Wokesters came looking to poke holes in Sunsara’s argument. A group of fascist MAGA students came to debate and to troll. And a lot of people came eager to hear Sunsara Taylor’s presentation.  They came because they were curious, and because they don't like this world and had big questions about what can be done to change it. 

In the event, Sunsara fought for a scientific understanding of the source of the problem in this system of capitalism-imperialism and the need for revolution.  She dissected the “woke” framework that leads people to accommodate with and fight for a place in this system and brought alive how—as Bob Avakian (BA) has analyzed—this wokeness feeds the fascism, even while claiming to oppose it.  Sunsara fought for a whole different revolutionary framework, contrasting this capitalist-imperialist system with the liberating vision laid out in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, written by BA. 

The significance of this event, with the revcoms as a contending force taking on all comers—and as a beginning of what needs to impact throughout society—shouldn't be underestimated.

From the Printed Page to the Public Square

For years, BA has been sharply calling out “woke” identity politics as a major obstacle to the revolution we need, and for the first time in a major way the revcoms took this analysis to the public square.  In “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating,” BA gives life to the stakes of this:

In Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis, I pointed to the characterization of the current polarization by the fascist former Republican congressman Steve King—that there is a lot of talk about another civil war, and one side (the fascist side) is heavily armed (with 8 trillion bullets) while the other (“woke”) side can’t decide which bathroom to use. Even as this involves some real distortion, and definite slander against trans people, there is a demented insight, and too much of the truth, in this observation by that fascist King. And, if this polarization remains essentially unchanged, it will have even worse implications, as things develop and further intensify.

This event, and the larger initiative it’s part of, is aiming to radically, and urgently, change this  alignment in society—to repolarize in a way that’s favorable for the revolution we need.  This “woke” lunacy—with its seeking out safe spaces and inclusion in this system, with its anti-scientific mode of thinking and vicious intimidation and lowered sights—is doing great harm.  And the dominance of this—in society, and in people’s thinking—needs to be shattered.  This is not going to be changed by each-one-teach-one, or by a smattering of individual conversations—or even thousands of such conversations.  It’s going to be changed by taking this on frontally and in a big societal way, creating a stir, breaking open a major debate and controversy.  Fighting to reset the terms to what they actually are: What is true and not true?  What it will take to end oppression here and all over the world? 

This is what began at this event at UCLA, and in the days leading up to it.  And with Sunsara’s speech aired in a special episode of The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show, it’s what needs to continue and be amplified.

Sunsara Cuts Deep, Then Exposes Disruptive Opportunists

After a brief introduction by Rafael Kadaris, Sunsara Taylor gave a powerful 50 minute speech that demolished woke identity politics from multiple angles, lifted people’s sights to a radically different approach to understanding and changing the world, and challenged the audience to confront the perilous situation humanity faces and seize the opportunity in this moment to fight for a real revolution.

Watch for yourself, and share the video everywhere!

As you can see, about 13 minutes into Sunsara’s speech, a small group of counter-revolutionaries who are cloaking themselves in this wokeness to vicously attack the revcoms, and especially BA, tried to disrupt the event. Sunsara handled the situation very well, asking them for a flyer and then pointing out their lies, slander, and inability to make a substantive argument, using them as “Exhibit A” of “woke” lunacy.  She appealed to the great majority of the audience who “came tonight because you are sick and tired of people pimping off the struggle against oppression to shut down honest debate,” and continued her speech as the mini-mob fecklessly fled the building.

After the speech, Sunsara and Rafael fielded a lively Q&A for over an hour.  There were questions coming from a clearly oppositional stance defending “wokeness” and questions from people who revealed themselves to be fascists.  A number of questions came from people who were provoked by Sunsara's presentation, and were seriously wanting to understand the situation we face and what's needed.  One person asked why this wokeness has become such a big force in society and whether this was inevitable. (He also asked an interesting question about AI.)  Someone else asked what the connection was between anti-wokeism and communism.

Throughout the Q&A, Sunsara exposed the fraud and harm of “wokeness,” deflated the puffed up MAGA-morons, and reset the terms to the actual situation in the world, the real interests of humanity, and the urgent need to get organized for revolution. The New “Two Outmodeds” (as Bob Avakian has referred to fascism and wokeism) were in the room, but instead of the deadly dynamic of woke lunacy and fascist insanity reinforcing each other while the decent people remain paralyzed, Sunsara led the audience down a whole different path in opposition to both of these “outmodeds.” Seeing this clash of ideas live, in a packed room at UCLA, was an incredible learning experience!

Subscribe to The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show at YouTube.com/therevcoms and stay tuned in the coming weeks as we release video from the Q&A!

After the event, students and others commented on the impact this event had on them.  Some students said they felt challenged to think in new ways. A grad student said, “this is an alternative way to understand the world and that's fascinating.” Another young person commented, "it was very engaging and it required critical thinking, and that’s something I think especially people in my generation are not used to. You’re hearing this information and you gotta wrestle with it. Woke ideology nowadays is like you make your opinion and that’s what it is.”

Another student commented: “I’ve been terrified to face the woke mob. But hearing Sunsara speak, I’ve gotten the courage to stand up to it more and to stop hiding.”

A few people said they were struck by the internationalism in Sunsara’s speech and the way she called out U.S. imperialism and the American privilege most wokesters are blind to. One person commented, “We often think about identities... I’m LGBTQ, I’m trans, I’m non-binary, I’m Black, I’m Brown. But we often don’t also think about the the the atrocities that this country has caused.” A student remarked, “I didn’t want a revolution because I’m doing pretty good, I’m at a nice college, I can eat. But when it was pointed out that this is at the cost of people in other countries who are really suffering, it was like OK, that’s not what I stand for, and even if it’s hard and scary, I understand why this is a thing people are pushing for.”

Reflecting on the event afterwards, one of the revcoms wrote: “[T]he majority of people were listening with rapt attention to Sunsara’s full argument and the way she was able to field thoughtful questions and skewer the disingenuous questions from MAGA fascists and wokesters alike. She was constantly challenging people to lift their sights, and constantly resetting the terms toward revolution. The atmosphere in the room was electrifying, and I got an idea of how things can transform in a relatively short period of time. On a microscale, I got a sense of the repolarization that needs to happen throughout society and the potential for winning the thousands into the organized forces for revolution and the millions of revolutionary-minded people. Afterwards I talked to one guy who said he’d come to a lazy conclusion about communism, and was rethinking all of that now.”

A number of students signed up after the event to learn more about and get involved with the Revolution Club and the “‘Woke’ Lunacy vs. Real Revolution” initiative. A couple students bought the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, and a bunch of people picked up the 7 Key points on Organizing for an Actual Revolution.

What happened at this event is significant, but even more significant is what got cracked open and what CAN and MUST happen now. This event confirmed the necessity, and revealed the potential, of taking “woke” identity politics on frontally, and with real revolution.

Students, intellectuals, artists, and others all over the country need to hear about this event and watch Sunsara Taylor’s speech on The RNL Show. Even more, they need to get into the extensive work that BA has done on this—which Sunsara is basing herself on and taking into the public square.  This summer, we need to get Sunsara into major media and podcasts, as well as dialogues and debates with ardent advocates of woke identity politics and intersectionality. And this fall, we need to take this campus speaking tour to a whole other level. YOU are needed to make this happen; and none of this can happen without major funds. So, email us at getorganizedforrevolutiontour@gmail.com to contribute your ideas and effort to this initiative, and DONATE generously!

As Sunsara Taylor wrote in her fundraising letter:

Campuses should be crackling with debate over the source and solution to injustice. They should be hotbeds of resistance and revolution! The arts and intellectual life should be filled with work challenging us to think and dream outside our comfort zones.

Instead, we see destructive moves to tear down and cancel individuals based on “identity” and accusations alone. We see demands for “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” to hide from reality. We see moves to censor art and books that don’t conform to the constantly mutating standards of woke-ness.

Many people grumble about this. We are daring to radically change this!