MXGM Self-Defence Manual

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Malcolm X Grassroots Movement March 2013
• alter the internal dynamics within our community by privileging a few over the many
with material and social rewards, getting a few of us to serve their interests against our
collective interests, and creating confusion and disruption through agent provocateurs,
set ups, and well coordinated strategies of disruption and counter-insurgency (like the
promotion of crack cocaine into our communities in the 1980’s).
• Internal Threats. These are threats that emerge from within the community. They
emerge largely from antagonisms and contradictions over resources, status, and
power. Turf Wars, for resources and respect, are the most publicly graphic example of
these threats. These wars are once again on the rise due, in large part, to the deepening
economic and social crisis confronting our people. Gender based violence, including
domestic violence, rape, sexual assaults, harassment and other assaults on women and
LGBTQI members of our community are also on the rise, in large part due to the
hyper-masculinity fueled by the economic and social crisis in this patriarchal society
and aggressively encouraged by the glorification of war and militarization over the
decades, and promoted by virtually all of the dominant communicative institutions of
the empire to protect and promote its established order.
• Inter-Communal Threats. These are threats that arise from antagonisms and
contradictions between different peoples (nationalities, races, ethnicities) largely over
resources, status, and power. They are also largely contradictions between competing
classes that exist amongst the peoples, not entire peoples themselves – like the New
Afrikan petit bourgeoisie competing with Latino and Asian petit bourgeois forces for
control over access and position within small retail, service, or production markets.
Most of these contradictions are created by the dynamic of hostile competition
structured within the capitalist system to keep oppressed and exploited people from
uniting against their common oppressors and exploiters. One particular intercommunal
contradiction that New Afrikans need to pay particular attention to is
between ourselves and Latinos. Latinos should be considered our strategic allies, given
many of our common interests and shared histories of oppression and exploitation at
the hands of the US government. But, there are many forces, both external and
internal to our community, working diligently to keep us divided and antagonistic to
each other.
We cannot meet these threats by ourselves alone. Given these complicated, inter-locking
threats, we need to organize at three different levels to make our Self Defense networks strong
enough to be effective.
• Build Our Independent Organizations. Each of our organizations needs to reach,
incorporate, and consolidate more people to enhance our individual capacities and
effectiveness to implement our own political and social programs and make broader
and deeper contributions to the liberation of our people.
Any unarmed people are slaves, or subject to slavery at any given moment.
Huey P. Newton
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