Bill Fletcher, Jr

Good afternoon. My thanks to Herb Boyd for inviting me to participate on this panel and my thanks to Herb and Haki Madhubuti for inviting me to contribute to the book of essays in response to the publication of Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.

It has been more than 30 years since I last read Frantz Fanon’s ‘The Pitfalls of National Consciousness,’ (hereafter referred to as ‘Pitfalls’) contained in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’.

The African World and Pan-Africanism itself have undergone dramatic changes over the last 40 years. On the African continent, for instance, the last remaining colony is the Western Sahara, and their coloniser is another African nation (Morocco).

Although I only met Samir Amin in late 2010, I had studied his work for decades, finding in them superior analyses and inspiration. In fact, after reading so much of his work I was quite unprepared for the person I actually met.

On the day of Manning Marable’s death, 1 April 2011, I received an additional piece of disturbing information.

When I received word of the passing of noted poet and singer Gil Scott-Heron I felt as if I had just heard about the death of a college friend whom I had not seen in many years. Perhaps it was because I actually got to know the work of Gil Scott-Heron while I was in college in the early 1970s.

‘“But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?” Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!’
– W.E.B. Dubois, from ‘The Souls of White Folk’

I could hardly contain my excitement after reading Sasha Polakow-Suransky’s 'The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa'.

Many people on the Left have difficulty addressing the issue of torture. Certainly when the torture is carried out by imperialists, there is no problem condemning it.