Black Power Talks

Episode #90:The Colonial Origins of Santa Claus

On this episode of Black Power Talks, we learn about the colonial origins of Santa Claus, also known as Sinter Klaas or St. Nick, the patron saint of shipping.
Colonial ideology purports the Christmas holiday to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus. In fact, the Christmas holiday season is centered around the obsessive pursuit and aspiration to purchase gifts, central to this is the Santa Claus Myth.
The Santa Claus myth has its origins in Dutch traditions surrounding the characters Sinter Klass and Zwarte Piet, Black Pete in English.  These traditions are celebrated in the Netherlands, also known as Holland, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, and throughout the colonial Dutch world with blackface festivals.  Africans have organized organized a serious pushback against these festivals, yet they persist. 
To help us understand the colonial-capitalist contradictions of the holiday season and the colonial origins of Santa Claus, we share clips from Chairman Omali Yeshitela.  The first clip is an excerpt from a conversation between Chairman Omali Yeshitela and Peggy Burke of the Global Afrikan Congress, speaking direct from Amsterdam that took place on November 28th, 2004.  
The second clip is an excerpt from a presentation given by Chairman Omali 2 weeks later, on December 19th, 2004, to the regular Sunday community meeting at the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.
 
 

Episode #89: Keep the Spear Burning! The Oldest Black Power Newspaper Turns 53 Years Old!

On December 22, 2021, The Burning Spear Newspaper turned 53 years old.  The Burning Spear Newspaper is the oldest Black Power Newspaper in continuous print. The Burning Spear Newspaper was founded by Chairman Omali Yeshitela, then named Joseph Waller, in 1968, in St. Petersburg, Florida.  First established as a newsletter produced on a mimeograph machine, the Burning Spear, or The Spear for short, became a full-spread newspaper in 1969.
Dubbed, the Voice of the International African Revolution, the Burning Spear Newspaper has been the leading organ of political and material support for the oppressed and exploited people of the world such as: Vietnam, Iran, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Occupied Palestine, Zimbabwe, Occupied Azania (South Africa), Cuba, Venezuela, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Congo, Walter Rodney's Guyana, Maurice Bishop’s Grenada, and everywhere else colonized and oppressed people have struggled for liberation. 
The Burning Spear Newspaper has been the base through which an entire African Internationalist media complex was formed.  This includes a publishing house, audio and visual communications.  
In this episode, we speak with the Editor-In-Chief of the Burning Spear Newspaper, Akile Anai.  Akile Anai is also the Director of Agitation and Propaganda for the African People’s Socialist Party.  Akile oversees the work of print, audio, and visual media of the Burning Spear Publications and Black Power Media.  She also supervises the political education processes of the Uhuru Movement and co-hosts the weekly political study #OmaliTaughtMe. Akile was featured in Ebony magazine as a Millenial of Change.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

Episode #88: Touch One! Touch All! Denzel Draughn acquitted for pepper spraying San Diego cops

On December 9, 2021, Denzel Draughn, an organizer with the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement in San Diego, California was found not guilty on all charges after a highly-profiled case of resistance to police terror. 
Denzel faced eight felonies, two counts of pepper spraying a group of San Diego cops and six counts of preventing an arrest.  Denzel faced as many as 11 years in prison and had been originally charged with almost 20 felonies.   Denzel had testified that his actions were in defense of the protestors who had been brutalized by the San Diego Police Department, and the jury agreed in their unanimous decision.
With similar cases in the docket against organizers in San Diego, and around the United States, the case versus Denzel Draughn had important legal implications.  The jury's acquittal represents the shaky foundation of colonial-capitalism, and the willingness of many to break with the culture of violence. The aggressiveness of the San Diego DA represents a hunkering down of the colonial state.  We can see similar measures in Florida where Governor Rick DeSantis's House Bill 1 has attempted to criminalize protest with the possibility of up to 15 years in prison.
In this episode, we talk with Denzel Draughn and his partner Parrish Davis about their victory in court as well as the way forward.  Denzel and Parrish are both organizers with the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement in San Diego, California.  They have participated in many programs and campaigns in San Diego including the Black Power at the Border Working Group that brought material resources and political education to African migrants across the colonial border in Tijuana Mexico, the Uhuru Shule Virtual Freedom School for children during the Covid shutdown, and Beta Selam Academy.  They are currently developing the Black Community Control of the Police Working Group in San Diego. 
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.
 

Episode #87: Africans in St. Petersburg Florida Demands Reparations! Take Back the Dome!

In this episode, we talk about the current surge in the movement for reparations to African people in the United States and elsewhere.  In St. Petersburg, Florida, organizers with the Reparations Now Committee of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement are leading the Take Back the Dome Campaign in response to the decades of economic devastation that the building of the 86 acre Tropicana Field has caused the African Community in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The struggle over the Tropicana Field has implications for the liberation struggles of African people around the world.  In the small Caribbean island of Barbuda, Africans are fighting wealthy white American land developers and neocolonial African politicians who have turned their communally owned land into vacation resorts.  
In a repeat of the build up to the 1984 Summer Olympics, the African and Mexican-Indigenous Communities in Inglewood and South Los Angeles are being ripped up and exported to the surrounding deserts.  In their stead, a new complex of sports stadiums have been developed. With the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood as the site of the 2022 Super Bowl, the working class communities have been promised economic development and jobs.  
The history of Tropicana Field and the Gas Plant area suggests otherwise.  But the history of resistance led by the Uhuru Movement offers a political way forward and revolutionary optimism for the people.
To discuss this with us today, we have Chimurenga Selembao.  Chimurenga is the National Director of Organization for the African People’s Socialist Party and the President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement branch.  It is in that role where he leads the Take Back the Dome Campaign.  A lifelong member of the Uhuru Movement, in 2001, Chimurenga took the Reparations Demand to the world stage at World Conference Against Racism in Durban South Africa.  
 
 
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

Episode #86: From Protest to Power: Kyle Rittenhouse, Ahmaud Arbery and the Black People‘s Court

On November 19, 2021, 18-year old Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges.  Rittenhouse had been charged with two counts of homicide, one count of attempted homicide, two counts of reckless endangerment, one count of unlawful possession of a firearm, and one count of curfew violation following an incident August 25, 2020.
In a seeming contrast, the three white men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery, an African jogger in Glynn County, Georgia were found guilty on November 24, 2021.  On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, an avid jogger, was lynched by father and son George McMichael and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William Bryan.
We know that power in the hands of the African Working Class is the highest form of true justice and liberation, no colonial courts can give us this.  In this episode, we will deepen the analysis of these differing judgements by hearing the words of various Uhuru Movement leaders Chairman Omali Yeshitela and President Kalambayi Andenet and speaking with Kobina Bantushango, the African People’s Socialist Party’s Southern Regional Representative.  It is there that Kobina is organizing the Black People’s Court to take the African community from Protest to Power.  
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

Episode #85: NoThanks to Colonialism--African and Indigenous Solidarity and Anticolonial Resistance

In this episode, we say NO THANKS TO COLONIALISM. We expose the colonial mythology of Thanksgiving as the ideological support for Manifest Destiny and European/White North American colonial-capitalist domination; namely but not only the project of settler-colonialism.  We speak with two activists and educators about the long history of anticolonial resistance and African and Indigenous solidarity. 
We discuss a variety of topics such as the colonial origins of the Thanksgiving holiday, created amidst the genocide of indigenous people, namely the mass lynching of Lakota people by the US military, the struggle for an America without borders, and the continued resistance of indigenous people. 
Our guest are Dr. Jimmy Patino and Ron Gochez.
Dr. Patino holds a PhD in Chicano History from the University of California San Diego and is a Professor of Chicano and Latino Studies at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Dr. Patino is the author of the book Raza Si, Migra No! Chicano Movement Struggles for Immigrant Rights in San Diego which chronicles the activism of Chicano movement activist Herman Baca and the Committee on Chicano Rights (CCR). 
Ron Gochez is the Undersecretary of Union Del Barrio in Los Angeles, California.  Ron is also a history teacher in South Central Los Angeles.  In 2013, he ran for Los Angeles City Council.  He currently leads work with the Association of Raza Educators and the Committees of Resistance.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

The People’s War Radio Show, Episode #84: Deepening the Resistance to Police Terror--The 13th Annual Black People‘s March on the White House

On November 6th and 7th, the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations held its 13th Annual Black People’s March on the White House followed by its annual Conference in Washington DC.  Africans, other colonized people and white people in solidarity gathered at Malcolm X Park and marched to Lafayette Park where they held a rally to mobilize for justice and self-determination for black people.  The next day local and remote representatives of the various organizations that make up the Black is Back Coalition came together - some in-person and some virtual - and held their annual conference, broadcast online for the safety of the audience during the current pandemic.
In this episode, we present some excerpts from the rallies, the march and the conference.  Full coverage of the conference can be found at the Black is Back Coalition’s Facebook Page.
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

The People’s War Radio Show, Episode #83: Live like Huey!--The African Working Class Defends the Legacy of Huey Newton

On October 24, 2021, Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was honored with the unveiling of a bronze bust at the intersection of Mandela Parkway and Dr. Huey P. Newton Way (formerly 9th street) in West Oakland, California.  Ninth Street was changed to Dr. Huey P. Newton Way on what would have been Newton’s 79th Birthday, February 17, 2021.  The revealing of the bust marked the 55th anniversary of the Black Panther Party. 
Today we talk with Bakari Olatunji is the Western Regional Representative of the African People’s Socialist Party about the Uhuru Movement's historic defense of Huey and the Black Panther Party.  Bakari led a contingency of six forces who served as the honor guard for the unveiling.  
Bakari was raised in Oakland and still lives there.  His organizing efforts span from to Little Bobby Hutton Mobile Health Clinic, to the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, to Uhuru Foods and Pies. 
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

The People’s War Radio Show, Episode #82: ”Stop stealing our babies”–African Women organize against CPS

On October 24, 2021, the African National Women's Organization held the Arrest CPS organizing conference to bring together parents, organizers and lawyers as a strategy to strengthen parents’ defense of their children and offer a network of support that is rooted in empowering African families.  The organizing conference featured panel discussions from members of the Uhuru Movement, Union Del Barrio, Operation Stop CPS and Movement for Power.
This episode features excerpts from that conference.  It establishes the state-sponsored child welfare system as part of a long history of colonial domination of African and Indigenous people and provides practical ways for people to organize in their best interest.Guest featured on this episode are Yejide Orunmila, President of the African National Women's Organization, Chimurenga Selembao, National Director of Organization for the African People's Socialist Party, Demetria Hester, also of ANWO and the APSP, Erin Miles-Cloud of Movement for Power, and lastly Taffarah Austin and Amanda Wallace of Operation Stop CPS.
To view the full conference go to the African National Women's Organization Facebook Page.
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

The People’s War Radio Show, Episode #81: ”Water more poisoned than Flint‘s”--Activists on the Benton Harbor Water Crisis

Today on The People’s War Radio Show, we are looking at the water crisis in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Benton Harbor is 85 percent Black and more than 45 percent of the residents live below the poverty line.  As far back as 2015, residents began to notice high amounts of lead in their water. 
Residents began to raise the alarm but local and state officials did nothing.  After years of complaints, a 2018 was finally done that showed the presence of lead in the Benton Harbor water at rates that exceeded the highest point of the Flint Water Crisis. That was three years ago.  Thanks to the efforts of organizers, this issue has finally gained international attention. 
The Benton Harbor water crisis is another example of the colonial virus. The Benton Harbor Water Crisis, the Flint Water Crisis and all other environmental crises are the result of an unjust economic system where white people in the US and Europe, less than 20% of the world’s population, consume over 80% of the world's resources.
This status quo is unsustainable but we know that there will never be peace until African people and colonized peoples all over the world have control over their own land and resources.
Today we talk with two activists from Benton Harbor, Reverend Edward Pinkney and Akinsheli Sayero’ Oshosi.
A longtime activist, Rev. Edward Pinkney has organized for African independence in Benton Harbor in the face of their subservience to the Whirlpool corporation. Rev. Pinkney is the President and CEO of the Benton Harbor Water Council.  He is also leader and founder of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization as well as a member of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations.
 
 
 
 
 
Akinsheli Sayero’ Oshosi is a member of African People's Socialist Party and resides in Battle Creek, Michigan.  He also works with the Louisiana United International Working Group and the Black is Back Coalition. From 1969 to 1975, he was a member of the Black Panther Party.  He continued his fight in defense of the constitutional rights of Benton Harbor Residents.  Sayero’ is a lifelong revolutionary in spirit, deed and thought.
 
 
Rev. Pinkey and Sayero speak about the Benton Harbor Water Crisis, the colonial conditions the African community suffer under the Whirlpool Corporation, corrupt politicians and heavy-handed policing.  They also propose ways forward. 
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.