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Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin

100 quotes

“The victims of racism know best how to fight back against it.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the M-L's "United Fronts" care about is a strict political approach to defeat fascism and prevent them from attaining state power, while being able to usher the in instead. They organize liberals and others into mass coalitions just to seize power, and then crush all radical and liberal ideological opponents after they get done with the fascists. That is why the Stalinist "Communist" states resemble fascist s so much in refusing to allow ideological plurality — they are both totalitarian. For that matter, how much difference was there really between Stalin and Hitler?”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Almost from the very inception of the North American socialist movement, the simple-minded economist position that all Black and white workers have to do to wage a revolution is to engage in a "common (economic) struggle" has been used to avoid struggle against white supremacy. In fact, the white left has always taken the chauvinist position that since the white working class is the revolutionary vanguard anyway, why worry about an issue that will "divide the class"?”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We need to challenge and correct racist and doctrinaire positions on race and class within our movement. If we cannot do that, then we cannot organize the working class, Black or white, and are of no use to anyone.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ideals of Anarchism are something new to the Black movement and have never really been examined by Black and other non-white activists. Put simply, it means the people themselves should rule, not governments, political parties, or self-appointed leaders in their name. Anarchism also stands for the self-determination of all oppressed peoples, and their right to struggle for freedom by any means necessary.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only the Black masses can finally decide the matter, whether they will be content to bear the brunt of the current economic depression and the escalating racist brutality, or will lead a fight back. Anarchists trust the best instincts of the people, and human nature dictates that where there is repression there will be resistance; where there is slavery, there will a struggle against it. The Black masses have shown they will fight, and when they organize they will win!”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Autonomy means that the movement must be truly independent and a free association of all those united around common goals, rather than membership as the result of some oath or other pressure.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We spread Anarchists beliefs not to "take over" people, but to let them know how they can better organize themselves to fight tyranny and obtain freedom. We want to work with them as fellow human beings and allies, who have their own experiences, agendas, and needs. The idea is to get as many movements of people fighting the state as possible, since that is what brings the day of freedom for us all a little closer.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anarchists believe the first step toward self-determination and the Social revolution is Black control of the Black community. This means that Black people must form and unify their own organizations of struggle, take control of the existing Black communities and all the institutions within them, and conduct a consistent fight to overcome every form of economic, political and cultural servitude, and any system of racial and class inequality which is the product of this racist Capitalist society.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anarchists recognize the Commune as the primary organ of the new society, and as an alternative to the old society.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Commune is also a Black revolutionary counterculture. It is the embryo of the new Black revolutionary society in the body of the old sick, dying one. It is the new lifestyle in microcosm, which contains the new Black social values and the new communal organizations, and institutions, which will become the sociopolitical infrastructure of the free society.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Building consciousness and revolutionary culture means taking on realistic day-to-day issues, like hunger, the need for clothing and housing, joblessness, transportation and other issues.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From Detroit, Michigan to Durban, South Africa, from the Caribbean to Australia, from Brazil to England, Black workers are universally oppressed and exploited. The Black working class needs its own world labor organization. There is no racial group more borne down by social restraint than Black workers; they are oppressed as workers and as a people. Because of these dual forms of oppression and the fact that most trade unions exclude or do not struggle for Black laborer’s rights, we must organize for our own rights and liberation.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A person without a job under the Capitalist system is counted as nothing. Every worker has the human right to a job; yet under Capitalism, workers are dismissed form employment in times of business crisis, overproduction, depression or just to save labor costs through less workers and more speed-up. And some workers cannot find jobs in the Capitalist labor market because of lack of skills, or racial or social discrimination.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Capitalism is making economic exiles of Black people as a whole. The fact is that unemployment is concentrated in the Black and Hispanic communities, and is greatly responsible for the most destructive tendencies inhuman relations and deteriorating neighborhoods. Crime, prostitution, suicide, drug addiction, gang fighting, mental illness, alcoholism, and the break up of the Black family, and other social ills — all are rooted in the lack of jobs and the denial of essential social services in their communities. It is actually racial genocide in the form of social neglect.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unemployment is profitable for the bosses because it drives down the wages of workers and helps the employers to keep the workforce under control through this “reserve army of labor,” which are allegedly always ready to scab. Because of pervasive discrimination against Blacks, Latinos and other nationally oppressed workers, including higher levels unemployment — the jobs they do get are generally on the bottom rung. This is also profitable for the boss, and divides the working class.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Homelessness is just the most intensified form of unemployment, where in addition to loss of job or income, there is loss of housing and lack of access to social services. There are now millions of people homeless since the last 15 years, because of the Capitalist offensive to destroy the unions, beat back the gains of the civil rights struggle, and do away with the affordable housing sector in favor of yuppie gentrification in the cities.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Instead of eye-for-eye punishment, there should be restitution to the victims, their families or society. No revenge, such as the death penalty will bring a murder victim back, nor will long-term imprisonment serve either justice or the protection of society. After all, prisons are only human trashcans for those that society has discarded as worthless. No sane and just society would adopt such a course. Society makes criminals and must be responsible for their treatment. White capitalist society is itself a crime, and is the greatest teacher of corruption and violence.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Prisons are compact duplicates of the Black community, in that many of the same negative and destructive elements that are allowed to exist in our community and cause crime, especially drugs, are in poison in a more blatant and concentrated form To call such places "correctional" or "rehabilitative" institutions is a gross misnomer. Death camps are more like it. These prisons do not exist to punish everyone equally, but to protect the existing Capitalist system from you and I, the poor and working class.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only the community can stop drug trafficking, and it is our responsibility however you look at it. After all, those junkies are our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, neighbors and friends; they are no strangers. We must organize to save their lives and the life of our community.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dope is death! We must fight dope addiction by any means necessary! Do all you can to help your people in the anti-dope war!”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here is how Anarchists see the world: the world is presently organized into competing s, which though the Capitalist Western nations have been responsible for most of the world’s famine, imperialism and exploitation of the non-white peoples of the earth. In fact, all states are instruments of oppression. Even though there are governments that claim to be “workers states,” “Socialist countries” or so-called “Revolutionary governments,” in essence they all have the same function: dictatorship and oppression of the many over the few.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As long as there are nation-states, there will be war, tension and national enmity.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All over the world, Black people are being oppressed by their national governments. Some are colonial subjects in European countries, and one or another of the African States exploits some. Only a Social revolution will lead to Black unity and freedom.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Power to the people" does not mean a government or political party to rule in their name, but social and political power in the hands of the people themselves.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“True freedom is to have full self-determination about one’s social economic and cultural development.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the police and the government who are the main perpetrators of violence against Black people. Every day we read of the police murdering and maiming the people in our community, all in the name of “.” [...] They are an oppressive occupying army, are not of our community, cannot understand its problems, and do not identify with its people and their needs. Further, it is the corruption of the cops that protects organized crime and vice in our community, and Capitalism with its exploitative economic conditions which is responsible for all crime.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a foolish and unfortunate trait among Anarchists, the white left and sections of the Black movement to condemn the study of as premature or adventuristic, or an the other hand, to cast oneself into a blind fury of bank expropriations, kidnappings, bombings or plane hijackings. Too many people in the movement have a death trip approach to guns — they assume if you are not “fooling around,” then you should prove your convictions via a suicidal shootout in the streets. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To Anarchists, a Capitalist “democratic” government is no better than a fascist or Communist regime, because the ruling class only differs in the amount of violence they authorize their police and army to use and the degree of rights they will allow, if any. Through war, police repression, social neglect, and political repression. Governments have killed millions of persons, whether trying to defend or overthrow a government. Anarchists want to end this slaughter, and build a society based on peace and freedom.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anarchists are opposed to government, the state and Capitalism. Therefore, simply speaking, Anarchism is a no-government form of Socialism. In common with all Socialists, the Anarchists hold that the private ownership of land, capital and machinery has had its time; that it is condemned to disappear, and that all requisites for production must and will, become the common property of society, and be managed in common by the producers of wealth.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a modern independent society, the process of federation must be extended to all humanity. The network of voluntary associations — the Commune — will know no borders. It could be the size of the city, state, or nation or a society much larger than the nation-state under Capitalism. It could be a mass commune that would encompass all the world’s peoples in a number of continental Anarchist federations, say North America, Africa, or the Caribbean. Truly this would be a new world! Not a United Nations or “One World government,” but a united humanity.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we believe in ourselves and decide we can make a society based on free, caring individuals, that tendency within us will become the conscious choice of freedom-loving people. Anarchists see their job as strengthening that tendency, and show that there is no democracy or freedom under government — whether in the United States, China or Russia. Anarchists believe in direct democracy by the people as the only kind of freedom and self-rule.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Historically, there have been three major forms of socialism: (Anarchism), Authoritarian Socialism (Marxist Communism), and Democratic Socialism (electoral social democracy). The non-Anarchist left has echoed the bourgeoisie’s portrayal of Anarchism as an ideology of chaos and lunacy. But Anarchism and especially Anarchist-Communism has nothing in common with this image. It is false and made up by its ideological opponents, the Marxist-Leninists.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anarchists are social revolutionaries, who seek a stateless, classless, voluntary, cooperative federation of decentralized communes-based upon social ownership, individual liberty and autonomous self-management of social and economic life.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We reject the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is unbridled oppression, and the Marxist-Leninists and Stalinists must be made to answer for it. Millions have been murdered by Stalin in the name of fighting an internal class war, and millions more were murdered in China, Poland, Afghanistan, Cambodia, and other countries by Communist movements which followed Stalin’s prescription for . We reject State communism as the worst aberration and tyranny.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anarchists look to a world and a society in which real decision-making involves everyone who lives in it — a mass commune — not a few discipline freaks pulling the strings in a so-called “proletarian dictatorship.” Any and all dictatorship is bad, it has no deeming social features.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anarchist-Communists recognize that people are capable of determining their own needs and of making the necessary arrangements to satisfy those needs, provided that they have free access to social resources. It is always a political decision whether those resources are to be freely provided to all, so Anarchist-Communists believe in the credo of “from each according to (their) means, to each according to their needs.” This assures that all will be fed, clothed, and housed as normal social practice, not as demeaning welfare or that certain classes will be better provided for than others.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The principal barriers to a free society are the State and the institution of private property. It is the State which causes war, police repression, and other forms of violence, and it is private property — the lack of equal distribution of major social wealth — which causes crime and deprivation.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anarchists recognize the distinction between personal possessions and major Capitalistic property. Capitalistic Property is that which has as its basic characteristic and purpose the command of other people’s labor power became of its exchange value. The institution of property conditions the development of a set of social and economic relations, which has established Capitalism, and this situation allows a small minority within society to reap enormous benefits and privileges at the expense of the laboring minority. This is the classic scenario of Capital exploiting labor.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“America is the most violent country on earth. [...] The United States goes all over the world committing violence, it assassinates heads of State, overthrows governments, slaughters civilians in the hundreds of thousands, and makes a prison out of captive nations, such as it is doing in Iraq and Somalia, at the present time. We are expected to passively submit to these crimes of conquest, that is the hallmark of a good citizen.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first priority of Anarchists is the well being of all; thus we must organize the means to fully and equally fulfill the needs of the people. First, the means of production, transportation, and distribution must be organized into revolutionary organizations that the workers and the community run and control themselves.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must harness the social sciences and make them serve the people, while we coexist with nature. Authoritarians foolishly believe that it is possible to “conquer” nature, but that is not the issue. We are just one of a number of species which inhabit this planet even if we are the most intelligent. But then other species have not created nuclear weapons, started wars where millions have been killed, or engaged in discrimination against the races of their sub-species, all of which humankind has done. So who is to say which one is the most “intelligent?”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anarchism is the most democratic, effective, and radical way to obtain our freedom.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many times leaders have one agenda, followers have another.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today most political commentators or historians still do not want to give full credit to the effectiveness of SNCC, but many of the most powerful and successful struggles of the Civil rights movement were initiated and won by SNCC, including most of the voting rights struggles and the Mississippi phase of the freedom movement.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The continual subjugation of the masses depends on competition and internal disunity. As long as discrimination exists, and racial or ethnic minorities are oppressed, the entire working class is oppressed and weakened. This is so because the Capitalist class is able to use racism to drive down the wages of individual segments of the working class by inciting racial antagonism and forcing a fight for jobs and services. This division is a development that ultimately undercuts the living standards of all workers. Moreover, by pitting whites against Blacks and other oppressed nationalities, the Capitalist class is able to prevent workers from uniting against their common class enemy. As long as workers are fighting each other, Capitalist class rule is secure.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So in addition to the Nazis and the Klan, there are other right-wing forces that have been on the rise in the last 15 years. They include ultra-conservative rightist politicians and Christian fundamentalist preachers, along with the extreme right section of the Capitalist ruling class itself — small business owners, talk show hosts like , along with the professors, economists, philosophers and others in academia providing the ideological weaponry for the Capitalist offensive against the workers and oppressed people. Not all the racists wear sheets. These are the "respectable" racists, the new right conservatives, who are far more dangerous than the Klan or Nazis because their politics have become acceptable to large masses of white workers, who in turn blame racial minorities for their problems. The Capitalist class has already shown their willingness to use this conservative movement as a smoke screen for an attack on the , Black struggle and the entire working class. Many city public workers have been fired; schools, hospitals and other social services have been curtailed; government agencies have been privatized; welfare rolls have been cut drastically; and the budgets of city and state governments slashed. Banks have even used their dictatorial powers to demand these budget cuts, and to even, make entire cities default if they did not submit. This even happened to New York City in the 1970s. So this is not just an issue of poor, dumb rednecks in hoods. This is about hoods in business suits.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“White supremacy is more than just a set of ideas or prejudices. It is national oppression. Yet to most white people, the term conjures up images of the Nazis or Ku Klux Klan rather than the system of white skin privileges that really undergrids the Capitalist system in the U.S. Most white people, Anarchists included, believe in essence that Black people are "the same" as whites, and that we should just fight around "common issues" rather than deal with "racial matters," if they see any urgency in dealing with the matter at all. Some will not raise it in such a blunt fashion, they will say that "class issues should take precedence," but it means the same thing. They believe it's possible to put off the struggle against white supremacy until after the revolution, when in fact there will be no revolution if white supremacy is not attacked and defeated first. They won't win a revolution in the U.S. until they fight to improve the lot of Blacks and oppressed people who are being deprived of their democratic rights, as well as being super-exploited as workers.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the Capitalist bourgeoisie that creates inequality as a way to divide and rule over the entire working class. White skin privilege is a form of domination by Capital over white labor as well as oppressed nationality labor, not just providing material incentives to "buy off" white workers and set them against Black and other oppressed workers. This explains the obedience of white labor to Capitalism and the State. The white working class does not see their better off condition as part of the system of exploitation. After centuries of political and social indoctrination, they feel their privileged position is just and proper, and what is more has been "earned." They feel threatened by social gains of non-white workers, which is why they so vehemently opposed affirmative action plans to benefit minorities in jobs and hiring, and to redress years of discrimination against them. It is also why white workers have opposed most civil rights legislation.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yet it is the day-to-day workings of white supremacy that we must fight most vigorously. We cannot remain ignorant or indifferent to the workings of race and class under this system, so that oppressed workers remain victimized. For years, Blacks have been "first hired, first fired" by Capitalist industry. Further, seniority systems have engaged in open racial discrimination, and are little more than white job trusts. Blacks have even been driven out of whole industries, such as coal mining. Yet the white labor bosses have never objected or intervened on behalf of their class brothers, nor will they if not pressed up against the wall by white workers.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source