126.-wild-thing-wisdom.pdf
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Written by Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas
December 6, 2021


Wild Thing Wisdom / contents

A Children’s Story

Slaveocracy: A List of all the Players

Black Cats Like Us, pt. 1

Black Gender Blues

Black Cats Like Us, pt. 2

Those Who Took Wing (The Beautiful Ones)
Black Cats Like Us, pt. 3

Lowerarchy Theory

To Be a Wild Ting

The Parable of the Drum
Wild Thing Wisdom

Lorenzo Ervin learned from rappin with Martin Sostre. And Martin Sostre
rapped with kids in the hood from a book store. And Ojore Lutalo learned
from rapping with Kuwasi Balagoon. Balagoon rapped with all his fellow
inmates behind bars. Ervin rapped with folk through his prison writings,
becoming probably the most influential Black anarchist theorist.
Afrofuturists Abolitionists of the Americas learned from rapping with
other APOCs. The APOC initiative is indebted to Ervin, Alston, Ribeiro,
others, helping to change the face of anti-authoritarian and autonomist
movement. And “anarkata,”* well that word came from the shit we at
Afrofuturist Abolitionists been rapping about. And now we have folks
turning with us toward a deeper study of Black Anarchic Radicalism/
Black Autonomous Radicalism, or BAR. Folks rap with us about this on a
daily, and we always sharing quotes from a sib; much of our content on
this blog is based around contributions from others or direct quotes from
our freedom school. The point being made is this: there is a culture of
learning passed down, and it is primarily one of orature, based in
relationships, conversations, kickbacks, zines, statements, letters, songs,
etc. That is how our intellectual contributions to Black radical traditions
keep rolling out. We share the following parables as an offering of love,
imagination, with this oral culture this legacy in mind, so that we can
deepen our “wild thing” wisdom and keep it spreading. This is based off
the Parable of the Drum from To The Ones Who Can Fly: A Message from
the Whirlwind as well as various different posts, poems, conversations
emerging in and around BAR spaces we have helped curate, including our
experiences organizing in our hoods on the ground."

Nsambu Za Suekama, To The Ones Who Can Fly:.A Message from the Whirlwind. Chicago: True Leap Press
(2021). URL: https:/ /trueleappress.com/2021/03/01/reading-the-message-study-solidarity-spirit-and-
struggle/
*Anarkata is derived from a word “akata” that some Black folks
consider a slur. Because of this, only BLACK people can use it.
Anarkata is in-house. It means “unruly wild thing,” and is basically a
way of framing “anarchy” (without hierarchy) in terms of BLACK
AFRICAN struggle. Since the root word in “Anarkata” is considered a
slur by some, the Black people who are the only ones who can use it,
can NOT use it to refer to another Black person UNLESS that other
Black person explicitly identifies as such. We call people by what they
want to be called. Most Black Anarchic Radicals wanna be called
either Black Anarchists, Black Autonomists, or BARs for short. So
respect that. Anarkata came from disabled, working class, mostly
trans Black folk involved in abolitionist movement work and the
legacy of prison struggle and organizing in the streets. So even if you
are Black, but you ain’t working or lumpen or peasant class, or the
Spaces you mostly in are predominantly petit bou and middle class,
nonblack etc., and you have no connection to where the real struggle
is, then... understand this: we center the margins over here, from
below, toward self determination. Those of us who can and do
reclaim it and have the right orientation to do so also do not use it
when we are in certain settings. Because cooption and other dangers
are real. Use discretion. This is the four basic forms of etiquette
around that word, a point of clarification that has had to be made
since the online popularization of the word has also, unfortunately,
come with much lanestepping.
A Children’s Story
“When Black people get free, it will happen in nine days.

On the first day, they will say prayers and sing songs about the ancestors
and our African past.

On the second day, they will honor women, and give hugs to all sisters,
mothers, aunties, grannies, and femmes, to respect and protect them.

On the third day, they will salute every trans person. They will say that
gender is however we make it. They will let everyone dress as they want
to and call them beautiful and loved.

Then, on the fourth day, they will go to war and fight against slavery.

On the fifth day, they will return home. They will free the land, and all our
people all over this world.

On the sixth day, they will heal the earth, and help the animals and plants
grow again. They will say that all people should live because the whole
planet should live.

On the seventh day, they will realize that we are hurting, and that some of
us are sick. They will say that our bodies and minds need to heal. So they
will rest, and take care of those who need it, or help them care for
themselves.

On the eighth day, they will storm the jails and let all the poor people out.
They will take housing, food, clothes, medicine and give it to everyone.
They will say that all people should eat and travel and work and learn for
free.

Finally, on the ninth day, everyone will come together, and ask each other,
“who else needs to get free?” We will all have a voice to decide on what
we would do next. This is the story of how Black people will get free.”
Slaveocracy:
A List of all the Players


”Who owns the land, other resources, the tools, our bodies, who governs
the plantation, lives in a house of luxury off our backs is the Slavemaster.
The Man forces the enslaved to work and produce and build and keep the
colonial society running for their benefit. They make wealth from a system
of organized, protected robbery; while we suffer and beg and live destitute
and are fed crumbs from the master’s table.

Who keeps the enslaved in line and help protects the master’s material
interests are the Slave-drivers, usually poorer colonizers hired by the big
Man that feel better about themselves now that they can get over on Black
people.

Then there are the Slavetraders, who really the ones gambling with our
lives, who strike economic deals with or on behalf of the Masters about
the prices and value of the stolen land and resources and tools and houses
and plantations; and you have the Slavecatchers who are again, poorer
colonizers working for the Traders by doing the dirty work overseas of
stealing Afrikan people and African resources and forcing us into shackles
and bringing those stolen raw materials to the plantation from the
Motherland.

Now, right in between all of these factions is the Slave-auctioneers, the
ones who are actually doing the selling at the auction block. They get a
percentage of profit from it all, even though they may not own much at all
in this whole set up when compared to the big Man. They aspire to be
either the Traders or Masters; many of them might have friends or family
who are Traders or Masters. They respect the business know how and the
political power that the Traders and Masters have. Often, they might have
started out as either poor Catchers or poor Drivers but they then worked
their way up, supposedly. Some of them might even hate the Masters and
Traders, because they see them as lazy, privileged elites who don’t
actually grind for anything. This hate don’t mean they against them,
though. They just jealous. And given a chance, they might even fight the
Masters and Traders, but only to take their place.
Related to the Auctioneers are the folk who might not be selling and
profiting off slaves per se, but who are the middle men that sell and profit
off the cotton and other luxuries made off slave labor. Let’s just call them
the Merchant-Consumers. They are happy to be at the auction block and
buy or sell these goods at the market. Them and their families might not
be well off either, but at least they can have nice things and can try to
grind to the top. Some of them might move away from proximity to the
plantation and auction block. From a distance, they will recruit or hire
poor colonizers instead of using slave labor, to build or make more things
for them, using money and materials that originally came to their hands
because of the slave market.

Now, the children of the Merchant-Consumers see their
parents paying the poor colonizers for labor, and they think this is a
more humane aspect of their colonial society since it supposedly doesn’t
involve slavery. They ignore the fact that the houses they live in, land they
live on, things they all enjoy as consumers, again wouldn’t be possible
without the existence of the plantation. So these are the folk who still want
to use the land, tools, resources, houses, everything that was built on and
for the purpose of the Slaveocracy-but would like to “free” Black people
from our chains and exploit our labor through a wage-payment rather than
actual servitude. They are not friends to the enslaved, they just want a
“nicer” way to make sure the Masters, Drivers, Traders, Catchers, and
Auctioneers can do their job. They are the Gentleman’s-Slavers.

The slavemasters, drivers, catchers, traders, and auctioneers and even
some of the merchant-consumers do not like these types, because they
don’t like the idea that anyone should suggest that Black people deserve
wages or freedom. But, even if the gentleman’s slavers are in conflict with
the other colonizers, the latter still go along with them because in the end
it does make things easier and more profitable to find a way to keep us in
our place by pretending to care for us. If the system will look “liberal” and
“democratic,” the enslaved won't feel the need to rise up.
Plus, giving wages don’t have to mean giving peace and comfort. You can
pay close to nothing and it protects your pockets almost as much as
paying zero—the only difference is it gives the enslaved some crumbs to
look forward to. Now they can leave you alone and stop rebelling so much.
And yeah they might have legal emancipation but that doesn’t mean you
have to follow through with it in practice. You can still let the poor
colonizers chase, lynch, and brutalize them. And you can deny their rights
or take forever to give them their rights or be inconsistent with when or
how you respect their rights. Do this, and they will be all the more willing
to Grind for you without complaint, too, because while the conditions are
terrible, there is a Promise of a better life. And, in the end, they gonna
ignore the fact that you own the land, tools, the big house, that the raw
materials as well as their own bodies that were all stolen from Africa and
at the expense of African lives and the African continent.

Hey, maybe you can then convince them that they too should become
Auctioneers or work in the marketplace selling goods made off their own
stolen labor and resources. Tell them that this is what it means to be an
“entrepreneur” or a “small business owner.” Get some of them to believe they
can “move” away from the plantation too, or “buy it back,” or believe they
can hire employees themselves, exploit others for a wage-payment the
way the Gentleman’s-slavers can, and live their own consumerist lifestyle
that is financed off the auction block and the rest of the slaveocracy as the
Merchants can. Tell them that this is the “American Dream.”

Then you might tell them that they should become Drivers to “protect”
that lavish lifestyle, and make them think that this is what it means to be
a “civil servant.” Yes, fool them, furthermore, into then joining the
Catchers by calling it “patriotism” or even “anti-terrorism” so they can
help you continue supplying the material basis for their American Dream
without ever clocking it. They will happily bomb their overseas cousins
without a care. Maybe even convince them that they can someday be
Masters that own land, tools, the big house, the plantation. Give them
maybe one or two examples of a successful Black Master and tell them
that that this is “financial freedom.” Do all that you can to convince them
that this system is just and available to them, so they won't pay attention
to the fact that slavery was never abolished: it just put on new clothes.”
Black Cats Like Us, pt. 1

"hfs,
te

t

at
“Black cats like us be out on

the corner.

We singing and

rapping, vogueing

and twerking, and

pourin one out for

the dead homies:

“for all those who forgotten and unprotected, all those
who can’t love or live as themselves freely.”
We hang an RBG flag

off the street lamps

and talk to our

neighbors

about revolution.

We give out masks

and soap

and tissue and

we keep riot shields

wit us

just in case the

pigs wanna rump

wit us.

Black cats like us be out

in the parks.

We playing drums

or dominoes or

mancala,

and pourin one out

for the dead homies:

“for all those who fought for our
freedom, and for our homeland and our planet.”
We wave a Pride flag

high in the wind

and talk to our

neighbors
about autonomy.

We give out clothes

and contraceptives

and food and

we keep a bat

wit us

just in case the transphobes
wanna mess

wit us.
Black Gender Blues


“The enslaved Fieldman thinks that he is kept out of the house because
his woman does not/et him bethe one to work, and so isnot
womanly enough. The enslaved Fieldwoman thinks she is kept out of the
house because her husband does not work hard enough so that she does
not have to, and so is not manly enough.

Neither considers that they are both being exploited, and both forget that
the house they so esteemruns a plantation. Then come the enslaved
Homemakers, man and woman alike, who have relative comforts, whose
union is recognized, but who are not free, who must also work and be
subject alongside each other. The enslaved houseman and enslaved
housewoman believes that they are forced to labor in the master’s house
because the enslaved fieldman and enslaved fieldwoman are not working
as real men and real women should.

Neither considers that the only real Man is white; and the only real Woman
is she who is at once subordinate to the master and yet his partner in the
crimes against humanity that is the plantation project, the Mistress. So the
enslaved houseman and enslaved housewoman look down upon the
enslaved fieldman and enslaved fieldwoman for not fulfilling the mandates
of gender with a Christian propriety. And the enslaved fieldman and
enslaved fieldwoman get at each other’s throats for the same reasons.

None of them considers that perhaps these failures are
a material and structural problem not a personal one. To the enslaved,
then, gender is never a question of empowerment and self-determination
but rather of correct and incorrect behavior for which to punish one
another. And that is why when they see those who don’t even want gender
altogether, or who are not trying to define womanhood or manhood in the
way white society says it should be, who are transforming their genders
altogether, such folk, as Beautifulas they are, get demonized and
brutalized.

For, the enslaved, fieldworker or houseworker, want to do gender like the
master, and since they cannot (because they are oppressed,) then all the
perils and ills of their community are blamed not on the master and his
mistress but onany and all gendered impropriety, depravity, and
monstrosity, especially such as_ is supposedlypresent among the
transgressive gender beings that we call beautiful people.

» «4 *
Black Cats Like Us, pt. 2
Black cats like us be out

in the streets.

We chant about

the whirlwind and

about fire, and about
power from below

power through the margins
power in self-determination.
And we pour one out

for our dead homies:

“for all beings, whether those who ain’t human,
or those treated as less than human.”
We spray paint

a sankofa bird on

the side of the subway train
and talk to our

neighbors

about liberation.

We give out zines

and pamphlets

and flyers too, and

we keep a tool

wit us

just in case the ofays
wanna mess

wit us.

Black cats like us be out

on the stoop.

We light a blunt while
studying Assata,

Fanon, Marsha,

Nkrumah, Wynter,

Ervin,

and much, much more.

We pour one out
for our dead homies:

‘for all those whose brain work different and body work different;
and all those in prison and on the street.’
We tie a banner

to the handrail

that says

“wild Thing the Man

cannot house,’ and talk

to our neighbors

about freedom.

We write letters

to our sibs

who got locked up

and send

bread to our cousins

overseas, and our

trans sisters in need.
Those Who Took Wing (The Beautiful
Ones)
“And who are the beautiful people among the enslaved? Why are they
called this? Many of them are doctors, healers: those who work roots and
those who work spirits, it is said. Many of them are rebels, the runaways.
The enslaved spoke ill of them in public, but if anyone needed help with
an ailment, or a malady, or needed a charm to protect oneself from harm,
or needed help with giving birth, or preparing for death or burial, or sneak
off the plantation somehow, they came to the beautiful ones in private.
Some followed the beautiful ones into the Hush, to pray in secret, where
they worshipped a God who whispered liberty into their hearts, who
created the sun that gave light, who made the ocean roar, and who would
guide them to victory when they took up arms.

But the Man said the beautiful people were of the devil. Said that they
were predators, they were crossdressers, sodomites, heathens, eunuchs,
witches. The Man made laws to punish the beautiful people for how they
dressed and who they loved, and always condemned their lifestyle. And
the plantation preachers always warned the other slaves that the beautiful
people got their powers from demons and that because of that, they would
bring the enslaved into the pits of hell if anyone was to be like them or be
around them.

But the beautiful people knew who they were. They came from the soils
of the Motherland right along with everyone else: and they were drug here
in the ships from that Homeland right along with the other slaves. Some
were taken from the Kongo people where it is said they may have been
called jimbandaa; and others from what is now Angola, where they may
have been called chibado, and others from what is now Senegal where it
is said they were now being called ngor-jigeen, and others from other
regions: whose experiences and lifestyles were probably called uzeze,
kitesha, akengike, mangaiko, ikihundu, ikimaze, misago, lagredi, minon,
kojobesia, agyale, koetsire, soregu, oupanga, ngochane, mwaami. They
played various roles in their cultures and societies: as shamans, as political
leaders, as warriors, as guardians, and more.
And many of their names were robbed them, their cultures too, the roles
in their society they played destroyed: for the white Man spurned the
beautiful people, and said that only an uncivilized society would allow
them to exist. And this was said of all the Africans, because the white Man
saw wives who were men, and husbands and warriors who were women,
and this was not godly to them: and they observed the beautiful people
among these, but cursed them. So things were forgotten, the names of the
beautiful people, and the respect they had, was gone, and it is difficult to
find information about their past.

But the beautiful people at least held onto their powers. It is said that some
people could take wing, and they passed these stories down to their
children, and the children who came after them: and it was always the
beautiful people who it was said could fly. One man got cornered by the
slavedriver, and he walked to a tree and say “i think Im gon disappea into
dis tree” and so he did. And there was a beautiful woman from Nigeria, a
musician, she emerged from the bush generations later.

It was always said that the beautiful ones didn’t just fly off or vanish: they
went back to Africa. A man and his wife was brung over, and when they
realize they was enslaved now, they knew that they could not be beautiful
anymore, and realized they would be mistreated, and so they looked at
the other slaves, and said to them “we gon go back to the motherland:
good bye, good bye” and they flew right on out they chains. Every story
about the beautiful people was similar to this, how they took wing and
soared back to the Motherland.

The white Man never believe this, said it was impossible, but the enslaved
always did, even if they were scared of the beautiful people’s gifts, or saw
them as strange, or did not witness them with their own eyes, the enslaved
always revered the beautiful ones. And the beautiful ones are in every
upheaval. To this day. The beautiful ones are those who in English are
being called “trans.”
phe
ye
Black Cats Like Us, pt. 3
“And when the

ableist mfs

start to act up

when the gentrifiers

and capitalists

keep takin our

stuff

when the fatphobes keep
makin shit tough

the black cats make sure
to pull up.

We see a gap,

we fill it.

We not tryna be

our ancestors,

but we defining what

it means to be their descendants.
And we hold each other
to a practice,

a narrative, not a party.
As we pour one out

for our dead homies:

“for all power to all the people. Ase.’
Cuz Black cats like us
we a vibe,

we a wave.
Lowerarchy Theory


“They say we
are like crabs
in a barrel.
And this is

a figure

of speech to
mean when
people are trapped
like slaves, and
they fight
against each
other. They
tear each

other down. But
what if some
things are not
as they
appear?
Perhaps what
looks like
fighting might
be warnings?
For there was
ahole that

had been dug
into the
bottom of

the barrel

by the small
crabs. They said
here we could
escape. But
the big crabs
kept pushing
the small ones
down, since they
wanted to
escape through
the

opening

at the top

of the

barrel. The

big crabs
accused the
small crabs they
crushed
beneath them
of trying

to keep them
from rising

up out the
barrel. Mind
you, all the
small crabs been
tryna do

is help us

find a way

out this shit
from below
because the
Man is at

the top, and
ready to

pluck us out
one by one
and eat us.
them big crabs
might get left.”
To Be a Wild Ting


To be a wild thing first one must reject Man. Part of rejecting Man means
confronting who the Man is that’s housed within us, and how it came to
be so. We guide that inner struggle by trying to burn the master’s house;
and we let the revolution guide that journey of self-transformation. The
wild things are the descendants of the enslaved, Black folk, the children
of Africa. Those outside our community can be solidary with us only if
they reject Man and the master’s house, and discover what it means to be
ungovernable in their own unique way. They must not seek to tame or
domesticate us in Man’s stead, and the wild things are prepared to
confront the master and any junior partners who try to replace him or his
mistress.

The wild thing wants all her people free. The wild thing wants all their
people free. The wild things wants all his people free. The wild thing wants
all zir, xer, aer, people free. The wild thing moves like a mycorrhiza. The
wild thing is underground. The wild is steals nutrients from parts of the
ecosystem which hoard it and then shifts them toward the parts of the
ecosystem which needs it. The wild thing grasps things by the root, and
that is how we study and how we struggle.

Root-grasping is about militancy and care, care and militancy. It is an art,
a conviction, and a science of sorts. It says that there are worlds within
the world of the oppressed, and that each is shaped by the structures of
domination and exploitation and hierarchies and enclosures that master
forced on us. These worlds within worlds cause the oppressed to have a
desire for freedom. The thirst and hunger for freedom dont always align
with each other, the wild thing realizes, depending on the many worlds of
exploitation have been structured for in the lives of the enslaved. This is
because some forms of domination actually came from within our
societies: they are endogenous, the wild thing says. And so, the things
which the colonizer imposed exogenously upon us, simply imbricated on
problems we already had, like how fish scales end up growing on top of
each other. This is by design, to fortify the machine by dividing us among
ourselves through a graded inequality at the intramural level.
The wild thing, as a root-grasper, learns through immersion. They engage
with and in their world and the worlds of other people and their very sense
of self to map the different interests involved. While learning, they
encounter what is called a culture of opposition. Every world of the
oppressed has them: developing values, habits, practices, beliefs, in
response to the conditions weighing them down. The most common is
anti-cop sentiments. These cultures are called oppositional because it is
always about the dominated trying to find a way to wiggle out of their
cage, their chains. But since everyone has a part of the Man housed inside
us, and there are histories of oppression endogenous to our societies,
these cultures of opposition are often two-faced. They can be subversive,
and yet also reactionary at different times or sometimes all at once.
Someone might be anti-cop but pro-hierarchies of other kinds. The wild
thing has to figure out when and how and why this duality occurs, and to
what degrees they exist, and identify it in themselves and in their sibs and
community and comrades, with a sense of care and of militancy. Finally
the wild thing has to figure out which parts of these oppositional cultures
can be turned into the fires fires burn the plantation. No wild thing moves
in isolation; we are all part of a web or network of support and affinity,
and solidarity, small or large. It’s through this that the wild thing begins to
understand what we struggle against. The major battles include racism,
cisheterosexism, ableism, capitalism, imperialism, the State and its prisons
and pigs, class society, casteism, authoritarian religion. But the wild thing
is against all hierarchies.

The wild thing is a revolutionary catalyst. Which means the wild thing
wants, ultimately, an ongoing process of total structural change. The wild
thing strives to help facilitate that based off self-activity and autonomy.
The wild thing does not just want to burn the plantation: the wild thing
also wants to heal the soil upon which the master’s house once stood, and
thereupon establish a new mode of environmental inhabitation.
Something maintained at an equal expense, according to each unique
capacity and need, of all, unhindered by any class, caste, party, or deity.
This means the wild thing has to discover what they are fighting for too.
This is known as the revolutionary proposition. It’s about creating new
V/

worlds upon worlds that don’t have a material basis or requirement for
racism, cisheterosexism, ableism, capitalism, imperialism, the State and
its prisons and pigs, class society, casteism, authoritarian religion, or any
hierarchies. The revolutionary proposition is a dream of what the liberated
future could look like. The revolutionary proposition is imagined through
a direct and dialectical response to how the present oppressive reality is
organized. Cultures of opposition should lead to revolutionary proposition
and vice versa; they relate to each other like a moebius strip, and the wild
thing walks along both as they weave in and out of each other.

But since everyone has a part of the Man housed inside us, and there are
histories of oppression endogenous to our societies, even the
revolutionary propositions can be contradictory. Which means it may
choose to respond to certain aspects of the oppressive structure and not
others; it may push toward one liberatory future, but neglect others. The
different worlds in worlds of the oppressed, divided against one another
by design, creating contradictory hunger and thirst for freedom, is the
cause. The wild thing has to figure out when and how and why these
contradictions occur, and to what degrees they exist, and identify it in
themselves and in their sibs and community and comrades, with a sense
of care and of militancy. If the wild thing is already struggling in
themselves and struggling in different cultures of opposition, it becomes
easier to develop a more encompassing transformation of the totality of
oppressions. This is why some have proposed abolition, trans
(gender/sexual) liberation, disability justice, pan africanism, Autonomy,
socialism (or communism), to name a few. And there are constant
attempts among the wild things to figure out where these streams of Black
Radical Tradition fall short, and where they are strong, and what can be
synthesized through revolutionary action, and what must be discarded in
the course of struggle.

The wild thing’s aim is to make sure no one can be dominated ever again
and they fight and love like all to make sure of that. The wild thing is
humble and knows they are flawed and can be cruel if they are not vigilant
and so the wild thing is willing to be accountable and their fellow wild
things are there to be gentle yet firm in keeping one another sharp.

The wild thing understands the need for a delicate balance between rest
and resistance. The wild thing does not pretend to be above their body’s
needs or desires or flaws nor above that of the people: the wild thing
strives to attend to those things and chooses revolutionary strategy and
tactics with those in mind.

The wild thing is methodologically flexible, moves on consent culture,
tries to be accommodating without violating their own limitations and
boundaries, and tries to encourage and move through free initiative and
free association, horizontality, decentralization, and the balance between
local and more regionally wide ranging levels of operation. The wild thing
believes in the bullet and the bakery, the seed and the sword, the chopper
and the cane.

The wild thing is one the Man cannot subjugate. The wild thing sees the
hierarchical web of class dominations, and understands that it was tied
with the color line, and sees that it is threaded with cisheterosexism, and
sees that ableism is needle that spools the strands. But the wild thing has
the magic of the margins, which is a clearer vision of the seams, and starts
to unravel Man’s dominion like it was a tapestry. The wild thing is
indomitable in this way.

The wild thing is not intrinsically wild or a thing. The wild thing was made
a thing by structures; and turned wild in response to the conditions these
oppressive forces create. Knowing this is why the wild thing is always
being cautious. The wild thing says that a history of resistance or
domination is not inevitable, that it is a result of choices: some choices are
impulsive and of the moment. But they are cumulative realities, and when
they accumulate the frequencies and wavelengths become so strong
threat they stir up something. The wild thing is just a lived reflection of
those stirrings; and saying this to oneself is how one reminds themselves
that they are not on a pedestal, but rather a /evel person.
To be level is to believe in living. Believe in the spectrum of Beta days and
Gamma people. Believe in sunshine and windmills and waterfalls and
tricycles and rocking chairs. Believe that seeds grow into sprouts and
sprouts into trees. Believe in the mojo of yo brick throwing hands and in
the wisdom of one’s sensory organs however defined; and to believe in
rain and the storm and tears and the blood of infinity. Yes, the wild thing
believes in life, in bios and mythos. And in birth, and in the sweat of love.
And the fire of truth. And the wild thing says that even a lost ship, steered
by tired seasick sailors can still be guided home to port. And we do not
wag our fingers and scoff from the shore, and watch the ship verse the
high seas, lost and scattered astray, nor do we climb aboard pretending
to know how to steer without having learned about waves or stars or
navigation. No, we free our lil friends held in the hold at the bottom, and
we get the shit together... together. Cuz we the wild things that Man
cannot house. Purrrr.
The Parable of the Drum


“(t]here were probably slaves who found it worthwhile to negotiate with
the master back in the day. They might have said “We should ask the Man
to give us our drums back,” once the drums were taken.

And | imagine it might have been a good use of political energy too, if you
could use that demand for drums to expose to fellow slaves why drums
were taken away in the first place. But that’s the only reason a negotiation
should happen: expose contradictions and use that to build for revolution.
In this case, tactical slaves could say “the master took drums to prevent
communication among us that would be used to plan rebellions” (which
is the historical truth). In seeing that master snatched away drums in order
to suppress an opportunity for resistance, then we could clearly
understand that the colonizer is invested in our domination at all costs
and that that is why Man suppresses our liberties (whether it is drum use
or voting rights).

Negotiation is futile here, we should move as rebels instead and burn
down the master’s house (this is what the slave who is truly tactical will
use a demand or petition to reveal and achieve).

But some slaves probably never took it that far, and to this day, many
Black people in some sphere of political activation will not — as much as
they claim to be playing “chess, not checkers.”

Some just decided that when master said no to our demand, or beat us for
even asking about our drums, this was simply because Massa was
confused. Massa don’t know better. Massa’s heart needs to be fixed. We
just have to keep asking and praying for drums til we get them. And once
‘we got them, then we could all have fun on the plantation, because God
honored us and master finally heard us.
Meanwhile God had nothing to do with it (just like God would not have
softened Pharoah’s heart because God wanted Moses to rebel). The only
reason the master gives us our drums is so he could placate us and keep
us from getting angry enough to resist. But more importantly it is so he
could bring his fellows on to watch us play and dance and shout, so they
could enjoy us performing for them, even gamble and make money off
this performance. This is how it is with any of the crumbs we try to lick off
Massa’s table.”
@%
4
@%

e*


Afrofuturist Abolitionists of
(35) the Americas

What is the fugitive's fantasy, maroon's mythology, the rebel's

religion, the criminal's cosmology?

https://afanarchists.wordpress.com/