Jo

commie queer they/them

[Jo @QueerKilljoy]

@JamesHirschorn @ButchWare https://t.co/DoXxbJ9ykl

[Jo @QueerKilljoy]

@JamesHirschorn @ButchWare https://t.co/hzEs8afNk4

[Jo @QueerKilljoy]

@ThomasAHester2 @ninamonei Happily they were reunited

[Jo @QueerKilljoy]

@ninamonei @killerguerilla It’s the opposite. She talks about missing Black culture but compared it to missing one’s family on the plantation after escaping.

https://t.co/eg5q7zcVrI

[Jo @QueerKilljoy]

@novemcore Can you help me with the circle of fifths pls

I’m randomly music illiterate

[meenah 🇦🇸🌷 ☭. @westindiedai]

reminder that while in office, Obama doubled the bounty on Assata’s head.

[communist history vids ☭ @commsurreallism]

Assata shakur on her name and her ancestors

[Khadijah @Khadijahaynes1]

I just want to say thank you to Comandante Fidel Castro and the current revolutionary government of Cuba for protecting revolutionary foremother Assata Shakur. She died in a revolutionary country free from U.S tyranny.

[Val for Nevada 🌹🇵🇸 @ValforNevada]

Assata Shakur did not murder anybody. Medical professionals took the stand to say it was anatomically impossible for her to have been holding a gun when she was shot. She was framed because they failed to murder her.

[K.Diallo ☭ @nyeusi_waasi]

Assata Shakur Speaks from Exile: Excerpts from an Interview by Sociologist Christian Parenti (Cuba, 1997)

Parenti: How did you arrive in Cuba?

Assata Shakur: Well, I couldn’t, you know, just write a letter and say, “Dear Fidel, I’d like to come to your country.” So I had to hoof it–come and wait for the Cubans to respond. Luckily, they had some idea who I was, they’d seen some of the briefs and U.N. petitions from when I was a political prisoner. So they were somewhat familiar with my case and they gave me the status of being a political refugee. That means I am here in exile as a political person.

Parenti: How did you feel when you got here?

Shakur: I was really overwhelmed. Even though I considered myself a socialist, I had these insane, silly notions about Cuba. I mean, I grew up in the 1950s when little kids were hiding under their desks, because “the communists were coming.” So even though I was very supportive of the revolution, I expected everyone to go around in green fatigues looking like Fidel, speaking in a very stereotypical way, “the revolution must continue, Companero. Let us triumph, Comrade.” When I got here people were just people, doing what they had where I came from. It’s a country with a strong sense of community. Unlike the U.S., folks aren’t so isolated. People are really into other people. Also, I didn’t know there were all these black people here and that there was this whole Afro-Cuban culture. My image of Cuba was Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. I hadn’t heard of Antonio Maceo (a hero of the Cuban war of independence) and other Africans who had played a role in Cuban history.The lack of brand names and consumerism also really hit me. You go into a store and there would be a bag of “rice.” It undermined what I had taken for granted in the absurd zone where people are like, “Hey, I only eat uncle so and so’s brand of rice.”

Parenti: So, how were you greeted by the Cuban state?

Shakur: They’ve treated me very well. It was different from what I expected; I thought they might be pushy. But they were more interested in what I wanted to do, in my projects. I told them that the most important things were to unite with my daughter and to write a book. They said, “What do you need to do that?” They were also interested in my vision of the struggle of African people in the United States. I was so impressed by that. Because I grew up–so to speak–in the movement dealing with white leftists who were very bossy and wanted to tell us what to do and thought they knew everything. The Cuban attitude was one of solidarity with respect. It was a profound lesson in cooperation.

Parenti: Did they introduce you to people or guide you around for a while?

Shakur: They gave me a dictionary, an apartment, took me to some historical places, and then I was pretty much on my own. My daughter came down, after prolonged harassment and being denied a passport, and she became my number one priority. We discovered Cuban schools together, we did the sixth grade together, explored parks, and the beach.

Parenti: She was taken from you at birth, right?

Shakur: Yeah. It’s not like Cuba where you get to breast feed in prison and where they work closely with the family. Some mothers in the U.S. never get to see their newborns. I was with my daughter for a week before they sent me back to prison. That was one of the most difficult periods of my life, that separation. It’s only been recently that I’ve been able to talk about it. I had to just block it out, otherwise I think I might have gone insane. In 1979, when I escaped, she was only five years old.

Parenti: You came to Cuba how soon after?

Shakur: Five years later, in 1984.

[Momodou ✊🏿 @MomodouTaal]

Remember: Obama doubled the bounty on Assata Shakur. That tells you everything you need to know about that bastard. Assata’s image has been and will continue to be taken up as a symbol of resistance to empire, whilst Obama will be remembered as the dog of US imperialism.

[K.Diallo ☭ @nyeusi_waasi]

"I wasn’t against communism, but i can’t say i was for it either. At first, i viewed it suspiciously, as some kind of white man’s concoction, until i read works by African revolutionaries and studied the African liberation movements. Revolutionaries in Africa understood that the question of African liberation was not just a question of race, that even if they managed to get rid of the white colonialists, if they didn’t rid themselves of the capitalistic economic structure, the white colonialists would simply be replaced by Black neocolonialists. There was not a single liberation movement in Africa that was not fighting for socialism.

The whole thing boiled down to a simple equation: anything that has any kind of value is made, mined, grown, produced, and processed by working people. So why shouldn’t working people collectively own that wealth? Why shouldn’t working people own and control their own resources? Capitalism meant that rich businessmen owned the wealth, while socialism meant that the people who made the wealth owned it.

I got into heated arguments with sisters or brothers who claimed that the oppression of Black people was only a question of race. I argued that there were Black oppressors as well as white ones. That’s why you’ve got Blacks who support Nixon or Reagan or other conservatives. Black folks with money have always tended to support candidates who they believed would protect their financial interests. As far as i was concerned, it didn’t take too much brains to figure out that Black people are oppressed because of class as well as race, because we are poor and because we are Black. …

[Earlier in my life] When someone asked me what communism was, i opened my mouth to answer, then realized i didn’t have the faintest idea. My image of a communist came from a cartoon. It was a spy with a black trench coat and a black hat pulled down over his face, slinking around corners …
I never forgot that day. We’re taught at such an early age to be against the communists, yet most of us don’t have the faintest idea what communism is. Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is… It’s got to be one of the most basic principles of living: always decide who your enemies are for yourself, and never let your enemies choose your enemies for you."

[Jo @QueerKilljoy]

@SecWar Slaughtering civilians and children yesterday, today, and tomorrow

[Jo @QueerKilljoy]

@jayythewave This should be public

[Adil Haque @AdHaque110]

On March 25 of this year, the federal government of the United States arrested and attempted to deport a graduate student for writing an op-ed criticizing its foreign policy.

[Mageba @Mageba_____]

Storytime on why my situation "got the ick from me"

[Dylan Blaha @dylantblaha]

My name is Captain Dylan Blaha, and I’m an antifascist. I’ve served for nearly 13 years, including a tour in Afghanistan and three years in Germany.

Yesterday, Trump designated "Antifa" as a terrorist organization. Apparently it's now terrorism in America to be against fascism.

Antifa is a movement, not an organization. There is no central structure and no leadership.

They will use this lie to surveil and imprison Americans on the left.

They continue to erode American rights and freedoms.