Avant

I don’t know where to begin with Assata. There is no book that I hold closer to my heart, there is no book that I consider more important to a revolutionary understanding of the world. To put words to these feelings already feels inadequate and restrictive. Last night, a friend reflected on how refreshing Assata’s voice is. They were noting that they have lost touch with their ability to write as a human, as “just a guy”. I think I’ve lost a lot of that too. It is trained out of us by rubrics and resumés.

They way we reconnect with that voice is by doing. Conducting actions is the only way to return our writing to a foundation of action. Imperial academia thrives on disconnects; “It isn’t revolutionary or materialist to disconnect things.”1 We must maintain the connections between our thoughts and our actions. “Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory. The two have to go together. I was determined to do both.”2

I am endlessly grateful to every revolutionary who has shared their words with me. Assata was one of the first to really instill in me the importance of this sharing, the beauty and love that can exist in these spaces, and the potentialities that reading can reveal. Assata is a book I will forever force every one of my loved ones to read and one that I will place at the top of any revolutionary education syllabus precisely because of its humanity. While writers and thinkers like Lenin and Marx are undoubtedly, “two dudes who had made contributions to revolutionary struggle too great to be ignored,”3 many of their writings are not grounded in struggle in the way that Assata’s is. The simple structure of her autobiography forces connections between her railroading and unjust persecution and her life before she began to consider herself a revolutionary, a connection that unlocks the many other connections that are necessary to call ourselves revolutionary.

Many important works of theory are framed as separate realms from the struggle; even just placing theory and action in separate words diminishes and weakens both. Assata is constantly building bridges between the realms that we are taught to separate. She posits that, “One of the hardest lessons we had to learn is that revolutionary struggle is scientific rather than emotional. I'm not saying that we shouldn't feel anything, but decisions can't be based on love or on anger. They have to be based on the objective conditions and on what is the rational, unemotional thing to do.”4 While also filling the book with beautiful poems. Poetry is often siloed off as an unobjective and irrational medium, placed in a separate space from things like political analysis and armed struggle. Assata’s beautiful poems serve as a reminder that these fronts are not and cannot be separated. Just as the armed wing of struggle cannot exist without an aboveground political organ, political analysis cannot exist without poetry.

Early in her description of her childhood, Assata describes some of the variances in her education, going from awful racist teachers to one who began to connect the frequently disparate fields of education together;

It is exactly the compartmentalization of education that produces so-called revolutionaries who do not want to do the work. Those who enter spaces itching to jump out and solve every problem instantly, without the humility to listen or the dedication to develop an analysis to ground their actions. I am being somewhat harsh, as I am speaking mostly of those who convince themselves that they do have these things while wholly lacking them. There are many more who have been radicalized yet denied the tools to develop the literacy in the struggle that will carry us to victory. I do not have better words for this latter phenomenon than Assata:

I titled this section “Avant” (“before” in French) because I am writing it before I sit down and discuss Assata with some of my most beloved comrades. I will try not to come back an edit it and instead add my later thoughts following our discussion to another section, but I want to end this section with another beautiful example of Assata weaving the many threads of the world together with her beautiful urgency and clarity:

Aprés

We talked about everything, because Assata contains everything. It is remarkable how free a truly loving conversation is. Similar to any work of art filled with love, the words cannot do justice. The words end up feeling like little cages on the intangibles that flowed freely in the space that was created.

We pretty much all agreed that Assata is a fantastic beginning point. The humanity of Assata’s words connects and grounds it in the struggle in a way that so few other works often presented as “radicalism 101” do. We reflected on how beautifully present Assata’s story and analysis is in the actual work of organizing that we are always trying to do. The ways in which her observations on arrogance and reading connect to what we see as important in our organizing spaces.

Assata mentions at many points the importance of a scientific analysis as the basis of the struggle. A friend pointed out that this is why so many radical organizations emphasize reading. I ended up trailing off in my own thoughts about the failures in those reading lists. Which is certainly something that Assata discusses as well. She talks about dogmatism, something that often dogs (pun intended sorry) so-called revolutionary organizations, especially white-led ones. There are frequently obsessions with words and labels and literal dogmas that obstruct the real importance of political unity and interconnected struggle. I’ve already quoted it, but I will again, “You can't claim that you love people when you don't respect them, and you can't call for political unity unless you practice it in your relationships.” I will not be letting go of these words for a long time. Assata touches on many of the foundational pieces of our struggle, the things that need to exist for it to survive and grow in any meaningful fashion.

I want to leave you with a poem. Every single one of Assata’s poems in her autobiography is fantastic and revelatory beyond what I frequently expect possible in poetry, so picking one is impossible, but I have been feeling the contours of the words of “Leftovers — What is left”9 in my head ever since I reread it:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedLEFTOVERS — WHAT IS LEFT

After the bars and the gates
and the degradation,
What is left?

After the lock ins and the lock outs
and the lock ups,
What is left?

I mean, after the chains that get entangled
in the grey of one's matter,
After the bars that get stuck
in the hearts of men and women,
What is left?

After the tears and disappointments,
After the lonely isolation,
After the cut wrist and the heavy noose,
What is left?

I mean, like, after the commissary kisses
and the get-your-shit-off blues,
After the hustler has been hustled,
What is left?

After the murderburgers and the goon squads
and the tear gas,
After the bulls and the bull pens
and the bull shit,
What is left?

Like, after you know that god
can't be trusted,
After you know that the shrink
is a pusher,
that the word is a whip
and the badge is a bullet,
What is left?

After you know that the dead
are still walking,
After you realize that silence
is talking,
that outside and inside
are just an illusion,
What is left?

I mean, like, where is the sun?
Where are her arms and
where are her kisses?
There are lip-prints on my pillow—
i am searching.
What is left?

I mean, like, nothing is standstill
and nothing is abstract.
The wing of a butterfly
can't take flight.
The foot on my neck is part
of a body.
The song that i sing is part
of an echo.
What is left?

I mean, like, love is specific.
Is my mind a machine gun?
Is my heart a hacksaw?
Can i make freedom real? Yeah!
What is left?

I am at the top and bottom
of a lower-archy
I am an earth lover
from way back.
I am in love with
losers and laughter.
I am in love with
freedom and children.

Love is my sword
and truth is my compass.
What is left?