An Anti-Imperialist Understanding of the Martial Arts (part 1).

At a recent Eskrima seminar in Seattle, I mentioned to GM Rene Latosa after class that martial arts from Asia, particularly countries colonized by western powers, deserve a greater respect for the very reason of past or present colonization or occupation.

I could tell he was taken aback when I said that Filipinos are a conquored people (as are Africans globally). I wish I had more time to get into it.

So, I will do so here.

One thing that I have been taught in my walk thru the world of martial arts was that there were three things never discussed in the dojo: religion, politics, and intimate relationships.

Yet, as I look around the martial arts scene, I see that there is a stridently persistant, ultra-conservative (and sometimes fascist or neo-nazi) political line being put forward. It sounds more impressive for a self-defense dvd ad to read "learn to protect your family from terrorism" than it does for it to read "learn 2 or 3 good techniques from a product that is presented in a way that reinforces long-held prejudices, paranoia, and government propaganda."

Some may say "how un-patriotic". I would argue that patriotism in the United States is deeply rooted in those long-held prejudices, paranoia, and government propaganda; the propaganda in particular. The propagandists have much of the entire population believing all kinds of fantastic foolishness on a whole host of subjects.

The fact is that the majority of the martial arts in Amerikkka come from Japan, Korea, China, or the Phillipines. All of these countries have been occupied by Amerikkka at one point in time or another. It was under this kind of pressure, that masters of the various arts taught U.S. troops, who then took what they learned back to Amerikkka and made it commercially profitable for themselves.

Sometimes, one of these masters would immigrate to the United States; usually for the economic opportunities afforded based upon the theft and pillage (and accompaning warefare)that would wreck their home country and help facilitate the sending of those resources to Amerikkka as consumer goods. These masters produce nothing, they provide a service; just like most workers and entrepreneurs in the U.S.

As a martial arts/self-defense instructor in Amerikkka, who was born here, and watched as the art of his people (hip-hop) was appropriated and commercialized, often to the detriment of its originators, I decided to "keep it real" as far as my practice was concerned:

1. I openly bear witness that Karate comes from Okinawa, then Japan. The Japanese government, with the help of wealthy and politically conservative Okinawans, has occupied Okinawa for years. When they couldn't successfully ban the practice of Karate, they used a loyal Okinawan uncle tom, Gichin Funakoshi, to make karate more "Japanese"; from the belt system to the way the word "Karate" is written in kanji.

2. I strive to make my interpretation of the art accessible to poor and marginalized communities as much as I can, despite the economic hardships and indifference to my efforts by the very people I seek to share this knowledge with.

3. I will not allow my art to become a spectator sport exclusively. It is important to show others what I teach and to allow students to test their skills in a relatively safe and controlled enviroment, but I refuse to preside over its degeneration into blood sport, savagery, and human cockfighting.

Confronting a Facebook Fascist.

Steve: "when i said illegal immigrants i strictly meant illegal fuckin Mexicans, throw me on blast if you want but i fuckin hate them,the world is so fucked up to let 30,000 illegal mexicans walk the streets of Seattle and bitch about us not allowing them to take advantage of what we worked hard to make, why don't they work on their own country, free loaders."

My reply: Who you callin' illegal, PILGRIM?! Does some Republikkkan have his hand up your ass moving your mouth for you?

The Mexican's land was taken at gunpoint by your ancestors! I guess the people they robbed, enslaved, and butchered just didn't have enough "hustle".

Reality check, you are a SETTLER. You are not indigenous to this continent. You would not be here if it wasn't for the armed might of 15th century Europe. Your right to be here, your "citizenship", is based upon the armed might of the U.S. and the loyalty of people like you, especially white people. Your people didn't even start calling themselves "white" until after the American Revolution. The "founding fathers" helped to racialize class divisions amongst labor, paid and slave. White isn't just a skin color, it also represents a specific parasitic/nationalistic worldview, culture, and political ideology.

In the 1830s and 40s the Mexican goverment was running newspaper ads telling people in English and Spanish to report "illegal Gringos". It was these "illegal Gringos", mostly wealthy ranchers and their hired help, who took up arms and engaged in terrorism and guerilla warfare against Mexico (ever heard of "The Alamo"?). Later, the U.S. launched a "pre-emptive strike" (sound familiar?) jumping off war with Mexico, ending in their defeat and the creation of what is now Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah, Nevada, and Colorado.

You're on FB today talking crazy about the descendants of a terrorized, conquored people, and others like them who arrive here everyday because American companies (that would NEVER hire you) move to Mexico because they know they can exploit these folks freely. Why? Because, if the workers go on strike the Mexican army, or one of the drug cartels, will shoot them at the employer's request. Brings new meaning to the words: "your're fired!", doesn't it?

Imagine if that was YOU in the crosshairs. And that's just one of many issues that motivate entire families to risk being shot, seperated, raped, dehydrated, starved, biten by snakes/spiders, stung by scorpions, or stuffed into a trunk to come to the U.S.

Since you have so much hustle, would you take those type of risks? What are you willing to do to get and keep money? I suggest accepting the fact you will earn less and work more, since an employer with mostly Mexican workers probably won't pay prevailing wage (so called "white man's wages").

You should also learn how to speak Spanish fluently.

If you can't find work and can speak Spanish, you may be able to go amongst them and sell them things, as your ancestors did.

Just leave the rape, robbery, terrorism, and genocide out of it.

Justice for Heather Ellis! Fight Back Against Institutionalized Racism!

From One Peoples Project.

Who is Heather Ellis, you ask? Don't worry, you will know soon enough.

We'll be damned if Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin will be the ones telling you though. When it goes through their filter it will come out as perfectly fine that a woman should spend 15 years in jail for cutting in line at Wal-Mart, and we shouldn't pay attention to the police officer handing her Ku Klux Klan calling cards, because of course this is not a racial incident, and the man who makes friends with people like neo-Nazi Hal Turner and a woman who writes for the white nationalist website VDARE are the ones you can trust to tell you the truth on that. Now that we got that preemptive strike on those two clowns out of the way, let us explain.

For the past few weeks black radio stations and television programs have been talking about an 2007 incident in Kennett, MO, where a woman named Heather Ellis got into a scuffle at a local Wal-Mart after she was accused of cutting in line. Heather and her cousin went to separate lines and when her cousin found the shorter line, Heather joined him. That's where someone got mad, accusing her cutting line by the cashier, which led to an altercation. When Ellis was asked to leave the store, she argued with the managers, which led to the police being called. Ellis was eventually charged with disturbing the peace, resisting arrest and two counts of assaulting a police officer, which apparently is what in Missouri they call cops banging someone's head against a police car while they are saying they are not resisting arrest.

Ellis, a college student on her way to medical school, is fighting the charges, particularly since she doesn't have a history of this kind of behavior, and she refused to sign a plea deal. That is why the prosecutor went after her on the felony counts, hence the 15 years. Now say what you will, but the racial concerns did not arise unil Ellis was handed KKK cards from a Kennett police officer warning her about her actions. The cards stated, "You've just been paid a social visit by the Ku Klux Klan; the next visit will not be social." The officer claims that he only showed the family the cards to make them aware of the situation, but folks are not too sure about that.

As of this writing, the original prosecutor stepped aside after some public remarks made in regards to the case. He is being replaced by Morley Swingle, the prosecutor for Cape Girardeau County, MO, which is 100 miles away. Now you can be sure the latest in the conservative race war against blacks will be launched this week after this march takes place because Cape Girardeau is where Rush Limbaugh was born and raised, and the Limbaugh family are big players in the legal circles in this county.

So just know that this time the conservative race war will be personal, but we will be fine. They did it to the Jena Six and all of them are going to college instead of prison now. They did it to Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates, and they were completely ignored. They will just be background noise. Listen to those that are affected, not race-baiting couch potato conservatives.

Wyking Garrett vs. Deomestic Neo-Colonialism in "liberal" Seattle.

He dared to "think globally, act locally", so the city (and their knee-grow stooges) moved against him.

But this story didn't begin with Wyking Garrett's courageous act of March, 2008.

The efforts to establish an African American Heritage Museum and Cultural Center (AAHM&CC) in Seattle began in 1969, and came to the forefront in 1981 when Omari Tahir-Garrett and Isaiah Edwards led a community based coalition in opposing the construction of a police precinct in the heart of Seattle's historically Black Central Distict, proposing a positive cultural institution instead.

After successfully blocking the construction of the police precinct, the community turned its attention to the recently closed Colman school as the future home of the African American Heritage Museum & Cultural Center.

When the mayor began to back-pedal on his commitment to developing the museum, a dedicated few took decisive action.

Reply to Matt on Facebook (re: Uhuru News report on Bill Gates).

The political and cultural struggle for a "change from a violent to a nonviolent paradigm" is a struggle exclusive to the living. You must remain among the living in order to stay in it! Even plankton struggle violently to escape from the mouths of predators. Yet, you argue that human beings, specifically oppressed people, should not?

I don't see anyone endorsing violence (besides the state, its assorted militaries, and armed allies...thru their [media capiagns and] their actions!), but I do see individuals asserting their right to exist against an oppressive global economic system that is destroying the entire planet; and this is clearly a direct (but disporportional) response to individuals, such as Gates, asserting their right to exist as willing participants (and highly influential leaders) in this oppressive global economic system that is destroying the entire planet.

Revolutionaries can appreciate when (and why) liberals do what they can to put band-aids on open social/political/economic wounds in an effort to 'slow the bleeding': the internia of market forces, largely of their creation, continue to produce real and dire consequences for the poor (especially in Africa and the rest of the 3rd world).

Yes, the people need some relief. But 'buying people off' only prolongs the economic misery of economic decline.

You can only handout bread and canned goods for so long before the effects of Obama and Congress putting more money towards wars of imperialist domination; and then cynically declaring that a public health option can only serve 2% of the U.S. population, are more deeply felt.

This speeds up economic decline, even as good liberals from the non-profit sector use grant funding and endowments as 'damage control' (and also as a tax-write off).

At the same time, it is this same inertia that can produce the greatest mass awakenings and transformations of societies.

On The 10/31/09 Assassination of An SPD officer (reply to Kun Luv).

Sigh. Where to begin?...

First, I would like to kindly ask to folks to get a grip.

I know that sounds harsh and uncaring, but knee-jerk emotionalism tends to cloud judgement and can in fact add to the 'lynch mob' mentality that occurs by allowing decisions we make in the 'heat of the moment' to become public policy.

To those who are celebrating the death of this officer: advocating for the death of anyone openly is just asking for death to be visited upon you. Also, openly cheering this act on facebook puts all of us in the crosshairs to have death be visited upon us as well, more so than we do are already (especially in light of recent events). Please don't encourage police retaliation upon the people!

Every officer who joins the police department, and their families, know that death on the job is a very real possibility. This is why many civilians revere them and the work they do. And this is why they are socially elevated in the society as a particular warrior culture/caste, like the samurai of Japan.

However, there are many more civilians who fear them, because of what they do on the job, and how they do it, and who they most often do it to: black people and brown people, like me (and many of you).

Regardless of how many lost children they find, how much stolen property they return, how many arrests of rapists they make, or how many of them have your kids laughing when they interact with them at a community festival, they are still a part of the combined armed forces that protect the systems of capitalism and white supremacy. They are here primarily to protect private property, secondarily to ensure that the current social/political/economic order remains intact; thirdly (and lastly), to save you from yourself, your spouse, or your neighbor.

If you don't believe me, consider this:

(1.) the first professional metropolitan police force in the U.S. (New York City; founded in 1831) recruited slave catchers as commanding officers.

(2.) In 1992, a California judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by attorneys for a man beaten unconscious in front of officers at an outdoor event, stating that officers had no legal mandate to help him, since no public or private property was under threat.

(3.) It is the police and sheriffs departments that perform evictions from the homes and apartments of those behind on their rent or mortgage. "Squatting" is an economic and property-related "crime" under capitalism.

Now, consider what Jesus told his disciples: "our struggle is not against persons, but against principles and principalities".

The police may be your friends, they may be family, but they are also part of 'the state'. And the relationship between the community and the state is clearly an abusive one! As a victim of that abuse, I absolutely bear witness.

Where do YOU stand? Do you seek to comfort the abused? Do you have compassion for the abuser? Do you think the abused brings on the abuse his/herself? Do you think the abuser should be punished? Ever hear people say, "why doesn't the victim just leave?", or, "why doesn't the abuser get help?" What about that in the context of this situation?

For me, that's what this is really about. And about having that discussion. Because the outcome of that discussion, and any ACTIONS that come out of that discussion, will greatly determine whether police-community relations get better...or get worse!

None of us want anymore casualities and I'm certain they don't either.

I know I don't.