Story from Mao's Little Red Book:
A foolish old man went to North Mountain and began to dig; a wise old man passed by and said, "Why do you dig, foolish old man? Do you not know that you cannot move the mountain with a little shovel" But the foolish old man answered resolutely, "While the mountain cannot get any higher, it will get lower with each shoveful. When I pass on, my sons and his sons and his son's sons will go on making the mountain lower. Why can't we move this mountain?" And the foolish old man kept digging, and the generations that followed after him, and the wise old man looked on in disgust. But the resoluteness and the spirit of the generations that followed the foolish old man touched God's heart, and God [*] sent two angels who put the mountain on their backs and moved the mountain.
*"God" in this story signifies the millions of people who aided Mao in overthrowing imperialism.
(Cited from Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P. Newton)
We must not succumb to the pressure of wise men and women, for they will crush a people's revolutionary spirit under the guise of conventionalism and practicality. Their force is great in number; they are your mothers, your fathers, and your siblings, yet you must not waver under their continuing assault on change. The mentality of "keeping things the way they are" that pervades wise men, and their neurotic obsession with systemic and societal order, threatens to strengthen the shackles that keep the oppressed in a perpetual slave state in America. In contemporary times, these "wise men" are those who possess the knowledge of the realities of oppression in American society (i.e. the prison-industrial complex that enslaves young black males, the lack of adequate health care for those in poverty, education systems, etc.), yet balk at any attempt to overhaul the repressive systems that perpetuate this inequality.
Foolish men and women are needed to keep America's role as a repressive agent in check. Without them, America will continue to keep the poor and the minority in the lowest rung of society. As Eldridge Cleaver emphatically puts, "Far from helping the dog, America is knee deep in mud trying to keep the dog down. "
Only foolish men, such as the one Mao speaks of, can have the "wisdom" to move a mountain as grand as oppression. It would be naive to think this process can occur naturally, through a society run by elites who constructed the mountain in the first place hundreds of years ago. Elites have sought to infiltrate the consciousness of the people in persisting the myth that the mountain predates man; constructed in the same fashion as the rivers and canyons. The image of early elites carrying rocks to create this mountain burns bright in the minds of the oppressed' ancestors. These ancestors learned the hard way, leaving the world in same way as they lived: crushed under the weight of immense dirt and stones. With each cock of the gun and each crack of the whip, the elite expanded this massive mountain for hundreds of years, never expecting the mountain to collapse from the rage of revolution's shovels.
At points in history, the oppressed have expressed their outrage over their imposed inferior status in America, yet this not does strike fear in the elite who see this anger manifest itself in ways that does not threaten their status position. You see, the elite understand that they have history on their side, that the oppressed' ancestors made the same mistakes that the oppressed continue to make: hoping that the oppressor's morality will outweigh his capitalistic greed. Through protest and other means of non-violent resistance, the oppressed have attempted to garner the attention of the individuals who exploit their suffering, to change a long-standing unethical practice. An example of this is when the people in black community go to the police department with their complaints about police brutality, when the police force is only a wing of the nationwide assault on Black Americans, particularly black men. The elite may make changes to their capitalistic system from time to time (move a few rocks from the mountain), to appease the masses and squelch their revolt, effectively lulling them into a mentality that "business as usual" is finally changing. These small concessions instill a sense in the masses that the elite are a decent and moral people, and that freedom is an eventuality. But, as history has shown time and time again, this is never the case.
As Assata Shakur puts it best, "Nobody in the world, nobody in history have ever gained their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."
The masses must be shaken out of their sleep-state to pick up their shovels to move this mountain. If not, they will be wise men who have to live up to the fact that their children are going to be born in the same chains that shackled them.
Amandla!
The Foolish Man
A foolish old man went to North Mountain and began to dig; a wise old man passed by and said, "Why do you dig, foolish old man? Do you not know that you cannot move the mountain with a little shovel" But the foolish old man answered resolutely, "While the mountain cannot get any higher, it will get lower with each shoveful. When I pass on, my sons and his sons and his son's sons will go on making the mountain lower. Why can't we move this mountain?" And the foolish old man kept digging, and the generations that followed after him, and the wise old man looked on in disgust. But the resoluteness and the spirit of the generations that followed the foolish old man touched God's heart, and God [*] sent two angels who put the mountain on their backs and moved the mountain.
*"God" in this story signifies the millions of people who aided Mao in overthrowing imperialism.
(Cited from Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P. Newton)
We must not succumb to the pressure of wise men and women, for they will crush a people's revolutionary spirit under the guise of conventionalism and practicality. Their force is great in number; they are your mothers, your fathers, and your siblings, yet you must not waver under their continuing assault on change. The mentality of "keeping things the way they are" that pervades wise men, and their neurotic obsession with systemic and societal order, threatens to strengthen the shackles that keep the oppressed in a perpetual slave state in America. In contemporary times, these "wise men" are those who possess the knowledge of the realities of oppression in American society (i.e. the prison-industrial complex that enslaves young black males, the lack of adequate health care for those in poverty, education systems, etc.), yet balk at any attempt to overhaul the repressive systems that perpetuate this inequality.
Foolish men and women are needed to keep America's role as a repressive agent in check. Without them, America will continue to keep the poor and the minority in the lowest rung of society. As Eldridge Cleaver emphatically puts, "Far from helping the dog, America is knee deep in mud trying to keep the dog down. "
Only foolish men, such as the one Mao speaks of, can have the "wisdom" to move a mountain as grand as oppression. It would be naive to think this process can occur naturally, through a society run by elites who constructed the mountain in the first place hundreds of years ago. Elites have sought to infiltrate the consciousness of the people in persisting the myth that the mountain predates man; constructed in the same fashion as the rivers and canyons. The image of early elites carrying rocks to create this mountain burns bright in the minds of the oppressed' ancestors. These ancestors learned the hard way, leaving the world in same way as they lived: crushed under the weight of immense dirt and stones. With each cock of the gun and each crack of the whip, the elite expanded this massive mountain for hundreds of years, never expecting the mountain to collapse from the rage of revolution's shovels.
At points in history, the oppressed have expressed their outrage over their imposed inferior status in America, yet this not does strike fear in the elite who see this anger manifest itself in ways that does not threaten their status position. You see, the elite understand that they have history on their side, that the oppressed' ancestors made the same mistakes that the oppressed continue to make: hoping that the oppressor's morality will outweigh his capitalistic greed. Through protest and other means of non-violent resistance, the oppressed have attempted to garner the attention of the individuals who exploit their suffering, to change a long-standing unethical practice. An example of this is when the people in black community go to the police department with their complaints about police brutality, when the police force is only a wing of the nationwide assault on Black Americans, particularly black men. The elite may make changes to their capitalistic system from time to time (move a few rocks from the mountain), to appease the masses and squelch their revolt, effectively lulling them into a mentality that "business as usual" is finally changing. These small concessions instill a sense in the masses that the elite are a decent and moral people, and that freedom is an eventuality. But, as history has shown time and time again, this is never the case.
As Assata Shakur puts it best, "Nobody in the world, nobody in history have ever gained their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."
The masses must be shaken out of their sleep-state to pick up their shovels to move this mountain. If not, they will be wise men who have to live up to the fact that their children are going to be born in the same chains that shackled them.
Amandla!
The Foolish Man
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