Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 19:50:01 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: Re: M-I: Haikus and Racism


Tony writes;
>Bob!  What the hell is *this* load of *bullshit*?!  You really had to be
>hopped up on some good shit to come up with this stuff.  I mean, c'mon.
>You have much more sense than this.  (<=disapproving look=>)
>
>>Since when is black racism  just as bad as white rascism?
>
>Since we all crawled out of the primordial stew or whatever the hell it
>was.  That's since when.  All cleared up?  **Thanks to Justin for
>pointing this issue out and putting it to rest**

Oh really! Well, I disagree with you! Despite your sour looks- white rascism
has been the OPPRESSOR-Black rascism has been the OPPRESSED! Now to me that
is a BIG difference.. And if Justin agrees with you he is full of shit also.
Communists are not democrats on this stuff. We look at it the WHYS,the
WHERES and the WHO,S to determine a position on a question like Ebonics. But
for you this question is posed as all liberals pose the question. You hit me
and i hit you back thus you are both wrong. This is just another reason for
me to say;

malecki wrote;
>>...interested in the ways in which discussion of it seems to bring out
>>(or not bring out) certain actual or potential succumbings to liberal
>>racism (which seems to be the case both with Tony and TimWetc).

Tony replied;
>Oh yes, of course.  Thank you, O Great and Mighty Dr. Diety Cox, to whose
>"infinite wisdom" we should all look to in these times of not being able
>to think for ourselves.  You know, Comrade, you seem to have a real
>underlying problem with people, a sort of "social ineptness" if you will.
> (I'm sure, for arguments sake, you WON'T.)

No, no problem at all. I only read what you write. Let go around a bit in
the old brain and then I spit out exactly what i thing about in reply.
>
>>One point is, I believe, certain: there is no such thing as an
>"inferior" dialect or >language, nor is there any dialect or language in
>any way superior or inferior to any >other dialect or language in its
>capability of expressing (or thinking in) abstractions.

Oh yes their is! And it is based on economic power! In this case it is also
based on historical repression of black people. A good example is the
Swedes. before and at the beginning of the second world war German was the
second language after the end of the war it became English. In the case of
Ebonics this language is inferior in the sense that it is a product of
historical repression. It was in fact forced on the people because of a
racist system in the United States. And in fact is spoken by a minority of
people who in the long run have never had a pot to piss in thanks to the
system. It is historically a language of despair! But I defend it to the
hilt just because it is inferior and is and issue which the ruling class and
facists use as a tool to mobilise the middle class in their campaign of so
called "reverse racism" just as they did and are doing on the issue of
affirmative action. So the only abstraction around here for me is your at
best liberal view of the whole subject of Ebonics!
>
>SEE, THAT'S THE THING...NOBODY (and I challenge you to prove otherwise)
>TO MY KNOWLEDGE, HAS SAID EBONICS WAS "INFERIOR."  I ORIGINALLY POSED THE
>QUESTION OF ITS DIVIDING THE RACES BECAUSE I THOUGHT THAT ANY FURTHER
>RACE DIVISION MIGHT DEFEAT THE PURPOSES OF MARXISM.  I WASN'T SURE AND I
>WANTED FEEDBACK, BUT YOU, INSIST ON PICKING APART MY WORDS AND TWISTED
>THEM UP.  I REST MY CASE.  THANK YOU, DEAR CARROL, FOR OBSTRUCTING MY
>LEARNING ONCE AGAIN.  GOOD DAY SIR!!

Well the above is halfassed confusion. The confusion is wholely on your part
Tony. I did not nor ever will say that Ebonics has a tendency to split along
racist lines.Because it certainly does! Well this also goes for the National
Question but it does not mean that Communists do not fight for the right of
peoples to self determination - including the right to succeed and build
their own state. This naturally does not mean that Communists raise this to
a PRINCIPLE everywhere but we do try to have a Marxist approach to this
stuff. And I am sorry to hear that Carrol
who has said a lot of good things on Ebonics and myself have "obstructed"
your learning. The reason I write this stuff is because I hope you learn
something! I in fact have enormous amount of patience for the youth and
workers and poor people Tony. And in fact allow a lot of time and patience
to explain stuff like this. So keep your chin up! We might make you a
Communist yet:)
>
>--pause for effect-- Don,t choke on your coffee Tony!
>
>>So the real sick logic of this is clear: blacks genetically
>inferior=>hardwired to speak >a less sophisticated Ebonic language
>(though as I noted many kids speak in the >same damn way)=>black kids
>can't therefore understand complicated sentences >and algebra=>black kids
>fail at a high rate and must therefore be removed from >integrated
>classes so as not to bring the rest of the student body down=>first
>>separate Ebonics classes, probably to be supervised by incompetent
>Afrocentrics >(has anyone ever heard the melanin queen Frances Cress
>Welsing for whose >evening lecture there was a *massive* turnout when I
>was teaching) and Muslims, >and then separate high tech Indian
>reservations for the black underclass, as >recommended by Murray and
>Herrnstein and to be supervised by the thugs from the >Nation of Islam.

Is the above a description of the middle-class nightmare of America. It sort
of reminds me of Harrisburg. All of a sudden the middle class who for years
have been living in a dream world find the hard reality creeping in on their
turf. The two car garage-clipped grass--kiddies playing on the front
lawn--the product of an exceptional short period in history that gave a lot
of the post war generations a life style on the backs of not only the
millions upon millions of dead from the war--but colonialism and keeping the
third world near the brink of mass starvation and catastopy. The success
story is over and now the price has to be paid one way or another.
>
>WHOA...stop the train.  Where do you people come up with this?  Is it
>something in your water supply or something?  The one thing that some
>people here (myself included at times) have shown to me is the total lack
>of **common sense**  People like Louis G. and Lou P. and others have been
>strictly intellectual and adult about it all and have put up with it, but
>yet I repeatedly succumb to this malady and get caught up in and start
>stuff like this Ebonics debate.  I thought we could all handle this like
>adults and Marxists, but yet I and others have proven to myself that this
>is not possible.  We bicker like children and call names.  Well, you
>people CAN'T BREAK ME.  I'm sorry, but if you want to continue arguing,
>you'll have to pay for another 5 minutes!!  I SAID GOOD DAY SIR!!

Kouis G. is trying to write of the working class--and Louis P--well stick
around awhile and you will surely experience the New York Librarians adult
worl..
>
>--smile to self quietly-- Don,t smile yet. Because by the time you have
read this-I bet you are not smiling anymore.

Tony trys to be cute in ending up this stuff. So I will give him something
cute in return to chew on.

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki

In ending up this stuff on morals and intellectual snobbery I would
like to quote the words of a very old and wonderful blackman Willy!
Willy used to sit on the steps with us kids in the neighbourhood. Willy
was always there. This very old black man. And I remember to this very
day the words he often said to  us kids on the hot, humid summer nights
of New York City. Willie would say:                                         
                                                  
								"Watchit boy, this nigger ain,t got nothin never from rich
whiteman!"                                                                  
                               
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Oh Willie, you wonderful old man--how right you were... All these
years we sat with you on the steps and that was what you were trying
to hammer into our heads. Willie how fucking right you were.  I think
Willie deserves a statue right next old Abe Lincoln. Because this man
new what the bottom line in the fight between the have,s and the has
not,s as Willie use to put. Willie with those few words new more about
class struggle then all the fucking liberals alive today.                   
                                  
Hats off to Willie a great black old man!

AND

COCKROACHES!


When I was a kid growing up in New York City, I met my first
cockroach. In fact I met millions of them. If I were to get up
in the middle of the night to get a glass of water or go to the
bathroom the cockroaches were there. For example, arriving at the
bathroom to take a leak. I would turn on the light and thousands
of cockroaches on the ceiling and walls would run for cover.
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Even here in Sweden their is a word for cockroach, (Kackel=E4cka),
so obviously the cockroach is and international bug! However I have
not seen one cockroach in my 23 years of exile here.                        
                                                                            
                                                        

However, in New York City, the struggle to exterminate the cockroach
has been going on for a very long time. I remember so well the
struggle. In our apartment we would spray poison two or     three
times a year. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of cockroaches
would die in these attacks. Some would survive and move up into the
apartment over our heads. Then the people in that apartment would
try and exterminate them. The same thing would happen. Thousands,
perhaps hundreds of thousands would die. Then the cockroaches would
move up to the next apartment.
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When the cockroaches got to the apartment nearest the roof of the
apartment house. The same procedure described above would take place.
Then    the cockroaches started their long trip down again and end
up in our apartment!
Then this stuff would start all over again. The struggle to
exterminate the cockroach has probably been going on for centuries.It
is probably still going on today. Perhaps the only difference being
that the cockroaches have gotten a little smarter and have become
more resistant to the pesticides used against them.
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Today when I am soon to be 53 years old and understand this stuff a    
whole lot better, I,m beginning to understand that I perhaps have a
lot  in     common with the cockroach! I mean the treatment these bugs
have been getting sort of reminds me of what poor and working class
people have been getting for centuries.
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Of course the ruling class both in America and internationally have
had much more refined methods of extermination of poor and working
class people. But the millions and millions of dead poor and working
class people are still a fact. The dead can not carry on the struggle.
It is only the survivors, people like me and you, who can do anything
about the ruling class trying to wipe us out.
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Perhaps we can learn something from the cockroaches struggle to
survive extermination. If the cockroach was smart, it would of did
something about  their situation a long time ago. I mean just think
if the cockroaches had begun to organise themselves into trade unions
or started a newspaper called "Cockroach" claiming that they were
going to put and end to people who historically trying to exterminate
them.That might have saved a whole lot of lives and suffering for
the cockroaches.
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Well poor and working class people have been trying to organise
themselves for a fairly long time now. Unfortunately, just like the
cockroaches poor and working class people are devided about the
question of : What should   be done?
Some say  I ain,t going to do a god dam thing! Others say, that I am   
going to make the best of it and fuck everybody else. Some even join
the side of  the exterminators, while others just want to reform the
ruling class into being nice guys or girls!
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The author of these lines thinks that the struggle against the
ruling class (exterminators), is a struggle of poor and working
class people against the ruling class.Only one side or the other can
win.Because if poor and working class people don't win, they lose!
Perhaps poor and working class people can build and alliance with
the cockroaches to fight for political power. The cockroaches
understand historically what the struggle is about.
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In America and Sweden, as elsewhere there is a dire need for a
new political party. A party which can fight for political power
for poor and working class people in their own name. Perhaps we
could call it "The cockroach party". Because I think that even
the cockroaches understand by this time that it is either them
or us!
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I mean if we want that apple pie dream. Poor and working class people
are going to have to organise themselves in order to take the apple
pie from those who have got it! Because there isn't anyway else the
rich and powerful are going to give it up without a fight.

Bob Malecki
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http://www.kmf.org/malecki/

Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara,
Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball!

COCKROACH, a zine for poor and workingclass people
NOW ON LINE
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