Bay Area Revolution Club and Friends
Snapshot of a Dinner in the 'Hood!
January 26, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
1/23/13
After a weekend of fundraising, the Revolution Club along with friends and neighbors (and their children) had a dinner together at a local small Mexican restaurant. The dinner was 2-fold: to see where we are in relation to fundraising for BAE and also very importantly building a contingent to protest the woman haters who are coming to town on the next weekend. As an added treat, we listened to the Michael Slate interview with BA #2!
Before the diner began, we announced how we were going to pay for the dinner: in a communist way... from each according to their ability to each according to their needs. Many folks from the hood don’t have much, but can put in a little, while others who are well paid put in more of their share. In addition, we’d talked with the owner about making it an affordable dinner (about $3 average). We were drawing on the spirit of BA’s latest interview mentioning working cooperatively and collectively; and we were able to pay for the dinner while having some left over (try doing the math with 7 kids!).
On the weekend outing, selling tamales and brownies, we’d raised close to $400. A woman at our dinner talked about how the tamales were made in 2 different cities... and how the cooking was done with men and women, Black, white, Asian and Latino! One family made brownies separately in their home, also. All while listening to BA!
Speaking of listening to BA, we put out the boom box at the dinner. In spite of distractions (remember, 7 kids!), a few folks listened very intently to BA speak about the question of ‘is it crazy’? (i.e., to make revolution, given the way things are in the world). A middle aged Black man who had his ear to the boom box mentioned that this whole talk was making him think ‘about the whole world, making revolution in the whole world’. Especially when it came to even things like ‘natural disasters’ turning into ‘social crisis’.
Also this same person after listening to a reference to Trayvon Martin, mentioned the whole Rodney King affair... how it just jumped off; and then he wondered if it could go even further than just getting justice. The importance of having a core of dedicated people (like Trayvon’s family and others) who take these things out more broadly would come up later when we talked about meeting the anti-women forces next weekend.
(‘The core of dedicated people for BA’ is something this same man also thought about when he heard the first installment of Michael Slate’s interview... at the same time he paid attention to the question of strategy, he said he knew we couldn’t ‘wait’ for thousands to arrive, even though they would need to arrive if we are to make revolution. Wed still need that core... And we have an urgency to get this interview out to other people).
The question of ‘crazy’ also drew a response from a Black woman who reiterated that the system is ‘crazy’ the way it treats people, whether it’s dropping bombs in the middle east or raping women here or in India. She kept saying ‘it don’t make sense’; yet it needs to be ended.
We got into the whole topic of war on women using the last 2 issues of Revolution paper. The rape in India was instructive both in its horrific brutality... but also in the response which has been worldwide. And how we can’t let this fire burn out. A few dinner guests raised their hands in commitment to ‘meet’ the anti-women forces on Saturday. People from the hood don’t normally go out to these demonstrations (which the City of San Francisco wishes to keep low key). Plans were made for hook-up spots, etc. and also importantly to be out among friends and others spreading this message to join us!
People at the dinner told stories about how the whole issue of rape etc. is NOT low key to themselves... one woman talking about how she’d been raped and molested from a very young age. She was very disturbed also to see the direction of things since Roe v Wade... to where abortion doctors are being killed (she hadn’t heard about Dr. Tiller). Interestingly, the same woman talked about how she was “against violence”; but when the question of defending oneself against rape came up, she was very vocal about defending herself OR any other woman being raped.
A very important part of discussion was a comparison of the war on women and the experience of slavery... how slavery was just accepted/tolerated by many white people at the time.... and now much of the abuse of women (e.g. in pornography) is just accepted/tolerated as well.
One of our guests talked about the topic mentioned on a flyer for the New Years party... that is, how the world is a horror but it doesn’t have to be that way... a revolution is possible, because of the vision of BA for a viable world which he has been working on for decades... and there is an urgent need to get BA out there everywhere.
And this is where we are at, an urgent need to take BA much further in 2013.
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