The air was electric as poverty scholars, community activists, persons of conscious, and the general public awaited the arrival of Fred Hampton, Jr., Chairman for the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC). The POCC functions as a coalition building entity on the national and international front for Black Revolutionaries, and other Revolutionaries in the liberation struggle. As the chairman entered the theater and settled-in, Queennandi of the WelfareQUEENS project @ POOR Magazine started the conversation by requesting that the chairman share some of the history of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and his father’s position within the party. In addition, the chairman recounted how his father eventually came to be assassinated. The chairman’s deceased father, Fred Hampton, Sr., came to be recognized nationally due to his organizing ability, and eventually attained the position as deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. Fred Hampton, Sr. had served with other organizations such as Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and coined the concept of “Rainbow Coalition” after he brokered a truce between more than several regional non-political actors, referenced as gangs in dominant media outlets. Prior to the assassination of Fred Hampton, Sr. he had been selected to take the Black Panther Party’s position of National Spokesman for the party.
To hear the chairman’s story of how his father, a superb organizer, came to be assassinated transports the listener to a world that the average unsuspecting consumer driven citizen can not fathom. This was then the era of the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), a U.S. government backed campaign of insurgency, propagation of misinformation, assignations and murder, and chemical, biological and Psychological-Operations warfare to continue subjugating The African Descent - Blacks, people of color, and poor inhabitants of this incrementally stolen land. The COINTELPRO program was then a counter insurgency campaign consisting of illegal operations implemented by J. Edger Hoover, then Director of Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). Operations targeted specific factions, voices of dissent, and others who’d dare put action with a philosophy of liberation. In short, this was then a war declared by the U.S. Government on its own citizens to maintain status-quo, pro its national and international complex labor scheme of exploitation. Specifically, the entire campaign speaks to a reaffirming statement of position by the U.S. Government and reflects its anti-human rights creed, and prohibition regarding group autonomy - self-determinism.
We are introduced to Chairman Fred Hampton’s story recalling his father’s assassination set to the time period of the late 1960’s. A scene that quickly poses the question, what has changed today? What we quickly realize is that we live under categorically similar conditions today but with what is clearly a stepped-up agenda, delivered to us by the same U.S. Government. COINTELPRO continues to function today, although be it at a super-structure level of culture in which we do not question message, image, or intent in visual, audio, and print medium sources. These media are nothing more than propaganda machines, and continue to reinsert dominant views as if they were always and the only views that matter. Propaganda then creates a manifest for their reified culture as if our current situation in which we exist is a natural order, or true culture. We also see a government that sets about to contain, control, and collar not just Black folks and people of color but all impoverished people as it desperately attempts to manipulate social classes, buffer groups, and other unsuspecting ignorant folk who still are under the influence of the United States nightmare called, “the American Dream.”
The chairman responded to a number of quires, and expounded on the critical need to form and maintain coalitions among the oppressed that speak to those common issues impeding human rights within what is now a corporate, multinational structure. Incredibly, the most basic of human rights are not realized; food, water, clothing, and shelter are needs of the oppressed both in corporate, first world nations, and others considered as third-world by western standards but yet are inadequate in provision. One such question and answer exchange centered on the common notion that “a job” within the current economic structural design referred to as capitalism will actually generate group autonomy, independence, or detachment from this sinking ship within this current financial system. To rely on an unstable economic system for security of sustenance when we traditionally have been granted almost less than limited access to employment is fool-hardy and does not reveal our, the oppressed, true role as we are utilized as nothing more than surplus labor for corporate and military fodder. The chairman instead recommended we take stock in the resources we have as a community that are sustainable in terms of producible availability. Redirecting money and any other objects that may produce a value for trade and barter will provide a basis for wealth creation within the community.
In essence, as a community we need to become self-generating, creating our own wealth in other forms not related to status and shiny material trinkets purchased at our children’s expense, and their to be children, but the kind of non-monetary wealth that creates a regional – local Human Security Paradigm that meets the needs of all within a community. A working understanding of the Human Security Paradigm defines the concept as a people centered view of security providing personal, community, political, economic, environmental, health, and food security to people globally. Each aspect of the paradigm speaks to standards necessary to assure delivery of the hierarchy of human needs to be met without disruption. The idea being, upon the completion or maintenance of the HSP, an individual, group, and community pursuit of happiness could then take place. Developing micro business strategy models might not be a bad idea to start us on our way! Some oppressed communities around the world have benefitted from such undertakings.
We were also alerted to the use of language, its construction, and how language is framed in contemporary dominant media venues. Common code words are able to evoke the most vivid and wildest imaging’s which produce narratives and themes of a harmful nature to the oppressed. The chairman recommended deconstructing racist, sexist and classist themes, and reframing them in the appropriate context recognizing these themes and forms of language as the perpetuation of violence expressed via the state or corporate – transnational apparatus. For example, a revolutionary's view of the music medium will hold national popular artist responsible for the message he or she promotes because of the perpetuation of message and imagery. One cannot promote violence, all sorts of isms, madness, and what ever other destructive force in music and conversely say it is only entertainment because we are responsible for what we profess, and understand the impact and actions which flow from our statements. We should begin to wonder why we are barraged on a continuous basis with negative messages and who is it that benefits when our reality is framed for us.
We are grateful to Fred Hampton Jr. for sharing his time, experience, and father’s legacy with us in attendance that evening. As we meditate on the chairman’s continued message of struggle, we are reminded of his father’s words and they ring so clear:
Why don’t you live for the people!
Why don’t you struggle for the people!
Why don’t you die for the people!.... excerpt from message by FRED HAMPTON, SR. 1967
