Author’s Note: This is a piece I wrote back in Fall of 2024. I had been simmering in a (Black) rage for about 4 years at this point. During my high school years, I had gotten good at suppressing it, since the middle school “shenanigans” my friends and I had partaken in (responding to the killing of Michael Brown) sparked concern in my parents. But over this time period, the antagonism between my Blackness and the State had become too painstakingly evident to me — through more frequent and intimate encounters with death, alongside the struggles that come with being Black & Mad. I couldn’t keep the rage suppressed anymore.
A week or so before writing this, I had read ‘Anarkata: A Statement’ for the first time and my thinking turned on its head. Never had I considered or named the WORLD, in itself, as dehumanizing for myself and my Black skin- & kin- folk. “Our end goal is to end [the world]… it’s end is our beginning.”, is the quote that put the pieces together though. It got me thinking in this (more uncompromising, world-ending) way that gave me language to match my rage and elaborate the deeper reality I felt.
Inshallah, I hope reading this inspires some reflection for you and opens you up to perspectives that seek totalizing rupture through a refusal of the world itself. And more than that, I hope it inspires you to hate the world enough to fight for those things which can only be imagined through the world’s undoing (namely, Black liberation).
Peace in Struggle,
Emon
We went through hell for this world to be built! We “walking dead” in hell for it to exist! And hell is all the future holds if we don’t consciously choose to LIVE!
You say we ain’t in hell?
What the hell you call a world where you’re made to suffer if you stand on, speak on, act on, what’s right? A world where you’re made to feel uneasy about helping out the person next to you, and outright horrified to even think about helping out the masses of the people (those masses include you). A world where you’re made to view yourself as incapable of self-determination, and your community incapable of cooperation on y’all’s own terms.
What the hell you call a world where your “safety”, “freedom”, “interests”, and “well-being” are made to seem so at odds with every other person around you that you pledge your allegiance to a known and proud genocider, serial killer, necrophile, rapist, colonizer, slave holder – that devil you call America – for your “protection”?
Hear it well now! A WORLD WHERE YOU PLEDGE YOUR ALLEGIANCE TO THAT DEVIL AMERIKKKA FOR YOUR “PROTECTION”! And “protection” from what? Everything that comes with that devil’s world; everything you pledge your allegiance to.
You say we ain’t in hell? Stop lying to yourself.
You built the fire we burning in now under the threat of the whip. You were scared of that whip, rightfully. You saw the rape, murder, lashings, and all the other hell that devil put us through for just being Black, and standing in our Blackness, and said “I don’t want that for me”, rightfully.
You were scared, reasonably. You trembled, understandably. But when your knees buckled from the fear, you pushed us away; you slapped away our aiding hands; you fell on your face, and you bowed down to that devil.
You saw us get beat when we stopped throwing logs in the fire, and you started throwing logs in faster. You saw us get beat, many times murdered, when we ran away and you vowed to never leave that devil’s side. You saw us get beat for fighting back when that devil tried to have his way with us, and what’d you do? You got down on your knees and you looked up to that devil with submissive, admiring, longing, eyes to be sure that he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, he could always have his way with you.
Oh yes, you pledged your allegiance to that devil. You gave your labor, your body, your person, your EVERYTHING, to Amerikkka. And that devil accepted your pledge.
Amerikkka took your labor and built a prison for you to labor more behind concrete walls as a slave of the State. You pledged your allegiance to that devil.
Amerikkka took your body and used it as target practice for the soldiers in that occupying army you call the police; took your body and made you a mercenary, an all-Amerikkkan terrorist, specializing in the murder and raping of oppressed and super-exploited folk abroad; took your body, blasted it out to the world as a sex toy, and said to every predacious creep “this one should satisfy you good”; took your body and sold it to some billionaire who threw you in an arena with the other gladiators (slaves actually) and said “run, nigger, run”, “swing, nigger, swing”, “shoot, nigger, shoot” – “make me a lot, nigger, and I’ll make sure you get a bit”. You pledged your allegiance to that devil.
Amerikkka took your personhood and stripped it of its moral character, its affinity for connection with others and the earth, its ability to understand and empathize with others, its capacity to even engage itself.
Amerikkka took your personhood and stripped it of any personality, curiosity, creativity – took away your will to learn yourself, to become new, to explore the world and to transform it too. Amerikkka took your dignity and replaced it with spinelessness.
That devil made “you” alien to YOU – alien to EVERYTHING.
Then that devil told you to seek refuge in him. Amerikkka told you, “Don’t fight back. Don’t resist. Forget that you Black and forget what your Blackness means. Don’t choose to LIVE. Pledge your allegiance to me for your “protection”.”
You pledged your allegiance to that devil, and he accepted your pledge.
You say we ain’t in hell. THAT’S HOW WE KNOW WE IN HELL!
<em>That devil got his knee on your neck and is smogging up the air.
You suffocating. We suffocating too.
That devil got a red dot on your head and he just put a hole in your chest.
You bleeding out. We bleeding out too.
That devil sets the forests ablaze and leaves you to kindle the flames.
You burning alive. We burning alive too.
Amerikkka killed you…
then killed you again…
and kills you again…
sentence: perpetual death.</em>
Get real!
We in hell, and there ain’t no way to LIVE in hell.
You walking dead. We [can’t keep] walking dead too.
This world is Amerikkka’s world – and that devil got us (that includes you) out here dying for it, “walking dead” in it. We gotta leave Amerikkka in hell and let that devil burn with what’s his! WE GOTTA CHOOSE TO LIVE!
If we wanna do this, we gotta recognize that Amerikkka’s confused us about us and is doing everything possible to keep us confused. We gotta make it clear: There really ain’t no such thing as “walking dead”.
That devil’s just got us so integrated and assimilated, so invested in all the Amerikkkan bullshit – the dreams, the power, the image, the promises – that we done got caught up embodying his ideal of a person (“walking dead”). We done got so used to “walking dead” that we’ve internalized that image of ourself and now constantly strive to better embody it – to better march to Amerikkka’s tune. But don’t let that devil fool you. If you DEAD, you ain’t walking – you can’t march to Amerikkka’s tune.
We been made WALKING CONTRADICTIONS; alive, but playing dead so that necrophilic devil can have his way, so Amerikkka can keep leeching off our live’s, so the fire in this hell can keep burning hot using our body, our spirit, our person, as firewood.
So when we say “we walking dead”, understand what we mean: We “walking dead”, as in we‘re disconnected from our sense of agency and self-determination; we “walking dead”, as in we‘re organized in such a way that we aid Amerikkka in further holding power over us; we “walking dead”, as in we keep buying into that devil’s promise of a better hell for us if we bow down to him today; we “walking dead”, as in when we’re given the opportunity to LIVE, and that’s everyday, we turn away.
“WE WALKING DEAD!”, as in WE ALIVE BUT KEEP CHOOSING NOT TO LIVE.
And we WALKING CONTRADICTIONS because “WE WALKING DEAD!”
To reconnect with our sense of agency and self-determination; to organize our communities such that we empower ourself and disempower Amerikkka; to recapture everything that’s OURS, reclaim our autonomy, and RE-NAME OUR self; to stop being WALKING CONTRADICTIONS, “walking dead”; to leave Amerikkka in hell and let that devil burn with what’s his; WE GOTTA CHOOSE TO LIVE!
Amerikkka lives through our death,
and Amerikkka will die as we come to LIVE.
So we say, TO HELL WITH AMERIKKKA!
WE GONNA LIVE!
We say, LET THAT DEVIL BURN WITH WHAT’S HIS!
WE GONNA LIVE!
We say, THIS WORLD IS HELL! WE DON’T WANT IT, AND WE DONE DYING FOR IT!
WE GONNA LIVE!
And sure as we been cast off to the shadow of death,
THE BLACK WORLD WILL RISE!
Out the shadows’ unrest,
WE WILL LIVE!
When we say “TO HELL WITH AMERIKKKA!”, we ain’t just spouting off rhetoric, and we ain’t sounding off any kind of threat. We’re acknowledging that this world we in is hell – that there ain’t no way for us to LIVE in it. We’re acknowledging that the only way for us to get out of this hell is through us building a new world in which we can LIVE, and building it in such a way that this hell cannot sustain itself. When we say “TO HELL WITH AMERIKKKA!”, we’re actively recognizing that WE GOTTA BE REVOLUTIONARY if we really do mean it when we say “WE GONNA LIVE!”.
We’re recognizing, as Kwame Ture did:
“The major preoccupation of a revolutionary is in building, creating, not destroying. The revolutionary must destroy, but destruction is an inevitable consequence of [their] building. Like, for us to [LIVE] we’ve gotta destroy America. That ain’t our problem. We’ve gotta build [an alternative].”
We gotta really mean it when we say, “WE GONNA LIVE!”. We gotta recapture OUR identities, OUR histories, OUR communities, and reclaim our autonomy, so we can RE-NAME OUR self.
We gotta elucidate and make expressed the interconnectedness of everything and everyone. We gotta make that interconnectedness so intellectually obvious, so materially clear, that the contradictions Amerikkka attempts to confuse and manipulate us with cannot survive in our own persons – never mind our communities.
We gotta build a new, liberated, world – TO liberate, and THROUGH liberating, OUR self – in the midst of this hell we in right now. From beneath that devil’s shadow, we gotta rise to tower above him and cast OUR shadow of revolution over him and all of what’s his – engulfing Amerikkka, and Amerikkka’s world, in Blackness.
WE GOTTA BE REVOLUTIONARY!
No bluffing, and no more “walking dead”! WE SAY IT LOUD, and WE MEAN IT when we say: “TO HELL WITH AMERIKKKA! WE GONNA LIVE!”