POSTED IN AA GROUP

I am close friends with a former member of this group, Uponthegears. For those of you who don't remember him, he was one of a handful of Black DU members who stood for Senator Sanders until the convention and then stood in his defense after he became one of the whipping boys for Trump's victory. Even though Uponthegears views could not have been the most popular, he was always treated as a brother here. In fact, I came to DU because, even though he was FFR'd, he told me about the only post he had that that even most of the white DUers liked, a post about a friend of his whose tire was shot out late at night in rural Ohio and who got interrogated by the police for driving while black instead of treated like a victim of attempted murder. I was that friend.

Like Uponthegears, I am a Marxist and have been ever since we were both members of the Black Panther Party. I am as proud of that fact now as I was almost 50 years ago when we first learned of about the necessary role of Marxism in liberation from Seale and Cleaver. Even so, I have never voted for anyone in any election at any level who was not a Democrat. I have worked for the Democratic nominee during in every general election beginning in 1972 even though in 1972 I attended our convention instead. The reason for that is simple. It does not matter whether the Democratic Party "cares" about black people, or whether its policies are what I want them to be, or even whether it runs someone who I know to be racist. The United States has a binary system at the presidential level and for black people, at least in my mind, there is never a Republican who is better than any Democrat.

That does not mean that I will be silent when I see my brothers and sisters exploited. We were silent for 400 years. As of late, I have learned there is a price to be paid for that here. Because I have no doubt that I will pay that price in the near future, I just wanted to tell you before I do that Uponthegears is alive and well and that he still calls everyone in this group brother and sister.

Peace.