Both my talks @ #GNCinHOU
are on my fb page: http://Facebook.com/yahnendgo
are on my fb page: http://Facebook.com/yahnendgo Saturday at the Green Party national convention in Houston, singer and activist YahNe Ndgo addressed the collected:
Are ya'll ready for the political revolution?
I've got something that I'm going to say and you'll not going to like it.
F**k the political revolution.
Revolution -- I got the -- I got the definition pulled up here on my phone.
"A revolution is a forcible overthrow of government or social order in favor of a new system."
I was sitting -- I was sitting at home -- or in my room thinking about this idea of a political revolution. And what I realized is that that is not a realistic idea.
It doesn't exist.
A political revolution really is kind of saying we're going to get up inside of the politics and the system and we're going to transform it. That's not a revolution. That's reformation. Or reforming -- whatever the correct word is.
That's not a revolution.
That's not overthrowing anything.
That's not -- That's what we've been doing for generations.
The idea of a political revolution is what brought us mass incarceration. A political revolution has increased the number of people who have been deported from our country. A political revolution has cost the lives of millions of people across this globe in -- just within the last several years.
We do not need a political revolution.
What we need is an actual revolution.
What we need to do -- as I was talking about this with various of my comrades -- many of you I talked to in this room -- and the question comes up how can you do that, right? When the systems in place are so powerful? And they are. And they've got all kinds of resources -- including now drones that allow them to be able to drop bombs on us like we're video game characters anytime they want to. They don't even have to feel the reality of what they're doing to people anymore, right? I mean, that's what we're dealing with right now.
How do we do it?
And my answer to that is we do it from inside of here [gestures to her heart].
We do it amongst ourselves.
So we have to start -- and this goes back to a little bit about what we were talking about last Thursday -- we got to go inside and understand what it is that we are holding onto and what it is that we are doing that is actually counter-revolutionary.
So, for example, I would like all the people in here -- and I think that a good number of you will stand up -- but I would like all of the people in here who are racist to stand up.
Racist.
Racist.
Those of you who are sitting down, you have work to do.
You've got work to do.
Because you can't be growing up in this system here and not be racist.
It's not possible.
It's not your fault.
But you can't do anything to transform it if you can't even acknowledge it.
I need you to say, "Hello, my name is _____ and I am a racist." I need you to say it. [Crowd does.]
Thank you.
That is the beginning of us being able to begin that transformational and revolutionary process. We have to be able to acknowledge that we've got so much crap inside of us that prevents us from being able to be the people that we're striving to be all day long that we've been programmed by our media, we've been programmed by our magazines, by our movies, by the books we read, by the curriculum that we learn in our schools, we have been programmed to be racist against each other and against ourselves. And if we don't deal with that programming, then we're going to be killing more people in more countries and in this country as the generations progress. So we have to acknowledge what's going on. That's where the revolution starts. That is where the revolution starts.
So you've got to understand what is not revolutionary -- when we're sitting here running around talking about being in a revolution. It is not revolutionary to have a president drop a microphone and then drop a bunch of bombs on a bunch of people across this earth. It's not revolutionary for us to not criticize a president simply because he's a Black man. And to hold on to him as somebody who's too important to criticize because he got swag, because he's walking around with a good looking face and a smooth voice. It's not revolutionary for us to criticize the [former] Secretary of State and act like that man is not her president, to act like that man is not her boss. That coup in Honduras that she supported? He supported that s**t too.
And I want you to understand that when you don't fight for the people of Honduras, you are fighting against me.
If you don't stand with the people of Rawanda, then you don't stand with me. You stand against me.
Those are my brothers and sisters in Rawanda. Those are my brothers and sisters in Honduras. Those are my brothers and sisters in Haiti. Those are my brothers and sisters in Iraq. Those are my brothers and sisters in Libya. Those are my brothers and sisters in Syria.
It don't matter that they are on the other side of the world.
Buttons are nice. T-shirts are nice. Slogans are great.
Those are not revolutionary.
Throwing on a T-shirt does not make you a revolutionary.
You might be a revolutionary who throws on a T-shirt but throwing on a T-shirt does not make you a revolutionary.
Okay?
We have been very much, I've noticed a lot of Bernie supporters in here, right?
I'm about to hurt your feelings again. I don't like to hurt your feelings but I want you to know I didn't come here to make you'll feel good -- that's not what I came here to do today.
I came here to push a little bit.
I came her to challenge because the reality is that if we don't get this s**t right, we're gonna have the loss of our shores. We're gonna have the loss of half of our species -- plant and animals species. We're gonna have bombs exploding all over this country within the next year.
We've got to get this right.
We've got to understand what we're up against, okay?
Now I want to read you just the first paragraph of an article that was written and posted in May of last year at BLACK AGENDA REPORT by brother Bruce Dixon who I believe is here. [Amid clapping, Bruce Dixon stands.]
Alright.
Alright.
The title of this article is "Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democratic Party:"
The sheepdog is a card the Democratic party plays every presidential primary season when there's no White House Democrat running for re-election. The sheepdog is a presidential candidate running ostensibly to the left of the establishment Democrat to whom the billionaires will award the nomination. Sheepdogs are herders, and the sheepdog candidate is charged with herding activists and voters back into the Democratic fold who might otherwise drift leftward and outside of the Democratic party, either staying home or trying to build something outside the two party box.
[. . .]
Vermont senator and ostensible socialist Bernie Sanders is playing the sheepdog candidate for Hillary Clinton this year. Bernie's job is to warm up the crowd for Hillary, herding activist --
Any activists in here?
-- herding activists energies and the disaffected left back into the Democratic fold one more time. Bernie aims to tie up activist energies and resources till the summer of 2016 when the only remaining choice will be the usual lesser of two evils.
Anybody been hearing anybody talk about the lesser of two evils today? Anybody heard talk over this summer, over the summer of 2016? And I know the idea -- the idea that Bernie would be working in this entire system while he's telling us that he's against us is a hard idea but this is the reality: It doesn't even matter. And let me tell you why it doesn't matter: It doesn't matter because all of us are here. Bernie still served that purpose as a beacon and he pulled millions of unactivated people and got them involved in the system. He still caused millions of people to understand that we are living in a corrupt system. He caused us to find each other. Now we are prepared with the collectiveness to change this world.