Why am I an "Angry Black Anarchist"?

As the first post of what might be a comprehensive blog about race, politics, anti-fascism and solidarity, I must make the rather pretentious assumption that there is someone reading this that either doesn't know or isn't fully understanding of the politics in question.

What, exactly, is an anarchist?

At the most basic level, anarchists and social libertarians (or libertarian socialists) contend that hierarchy, or the compulsory stratification of a society, is the enemy of freedom. War, famine, genocide, rape, slavery, all of these things are considered to be the end result of various forms of caste systems that encourage ignorance and hate, usually centered around belief in a higher authority that makes all of these injustices right and acceptable: God (meaning religion, a perversion of spirituality), the State, and/or Capital.

It's not, however, only political. Anarchists also resist commodification of humanity; the things that make us complex and interesting, we believe, can never be mass-produced, marketed, bought or sold. The things that make us happy - including the concept of happiness itself - must be defined by what exists now, and not by images and representations of a false reality. The things that enrich us - like art, music, and education - must exist for everyone to share and build for their own sake, and not as privileges for a few industrialized nations.

Lastly, and most importantly, it is a realization of not only the hierarchies and privileges that exist, but of our own personal role in maintaining them, and dealing with either being accountable for our privileged status, or resisting the oppression of those with privilege in the applicable power dynamic. Usually, it's both. Few people are totally privileged or totally disadvantaged, and we all have a stake in creating a non-hierarchical alternative to the destructive society that exists now.

That's the theory, at least. Applying it as a unified group, creating before we destroy, vigilantly destroying the tendency to dominate and oppress within all of us - "Killing the cop inside you" - is quite another thing. Even the act of writing this can serve as a replacement for action, and I would never claim that it doesn't sometimes.

Why are you "Angry"?

The anger comes from this realization about the nature of our society, and how, time and time again throughout recorded history, we have essentially repeated the same mistakes as a species in solving the problems that we created in the first place.

It also comes from experiencing oppression firsthand and witnessing it, marvelling at the inhumanity we are capable of, myself included.

Eventually I came to the realization that I was born into a system that uses the desire for survival as leverage to push people into forming institutions that systematically humiliate and dominate others; that confronting these institutions directly will very likely result in death or prison, and also that behind the masses of people who complacently accept and enable this, there are still those who specifically wish to preserve the status quo and make hierarchy more hierarchical, oppression more oppressive, and brutality more brutal.

Add to this the frustration among those who are like-minded when they have to be accountable for their own privilege as either heterosexual, white, male, and/or upper-class people, and for changing their tactics accordingly.

And what does your "Black" identity mean in terms of resistance?

As a nonwhite person in the United States, it means that I have an obligation to counter the inherent pro-whiteness of this society, and a very real stake in destroying and discouraging white supremacy and other forms of fascism.

It also means that I can and should organize with other nonwhite people, anarchist or not, to do what is necessary to ensure the safety and empowerment of black communities, which are currently falling victim to poverty, media-perpetuated self-loathing, and, most recently, class division.

It means that the black bourgeois has a very pressing obligation to use their newfound privilege to create institutions based on liberty and respect for all life, instead of institutions that repeat the same tired oppressions based on class privilege, "lightskinnedness", homophobia and sexism.

Lastly, it means that I should align myself with all who are frustrated with even the most seemingly trivial social injustice, and try to use identity not to alienate, but to foster understanding.