Fight the Powers That Be
Join us on Wednesday, August 20 at 6:00 PM ET to discuss Tip of the Spear with Orisanmi Burton!
"2025 a number another summer…"
Riffing on the Public Enemy classic Fight the Power because that's the energy and mood needed in this moment. And yesterday, and in 1989, when the song came out, and in the decades before that.
And yet the awakening of the masses has been slow. Or, as Tip of the Spear so brilliantly illustrates, slowed down, quelled, and almost eradicated. Almost. But the spirit and the voices documented in the text prevail. We need them now.
It's tempting to get frustrated with the less radicalized or even with ourselves, as a great number of us seem to be frozen watching the predictions of some of our most fervent freedom fighters unfold. In a recent Rolling Stone article*, political prisoner Mumia Abbul Jabal said:
"It's hard not to look at the world at the present and feel a sense of profound chaos that grips one every day. It's partly because what the country has chosen is a kind of politics of madness, of meanness and — forgive me for saying so, but I do believe this in my bones — a kind of mass ignorance that cannot be ignored. That's the nature of this beast. It's an extraordinary and terrifying moment." - Mumia Abu-Jamal
And that’s exactly what the summer of 2025 has been showing us—terror in real time.
From the ongoing genocides and forced starvation of people in Gaza, Sudan, and the Congo, we're left to endure the trauma of watching rampant and brutal war crimes brazenly committed, devoid of consequences.
To the immigrants; our neighbors and friends hunted, kidnapped, and disappeared by ICE, 2025’s Gestapo. This terror shows us that the promise of due process is an option dictated by the whims of a racist, xenophobic administration. Again, Mumia Abu-Jamal makes it plain:
"The truth of the matter is that there has always been rhetoric about due process, the right to a jury of one's peers, and other protections offered by the constitution. But it doesn't matter what the constitution says, what matters is what it does." - Mumia Abu Jamal
The torture cages rapidly constructed and dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, a moniker gleefully promising death by horror, the jokes and laughs from officials to the tune of utter inhumanity, the pictures proudly shared in front of the sign, and the Alligator Alcatraz merch being shamelessly peddled all demonstrate a depravity that seems to know no end.
But no matter how long the list of horrors, for us, the answer has always been the same: RESIST.
Tip of the Spear does the deep work of excavating the history and voices that make clear that resistance is always possible. If the warriors who orchestrated the Long Attica Revolt summoned their wits, will, and strength while in the bowels of cages, under the daily deprivation and cruelty scarcely imagined, so can we. But we must understand our position.
"Within and against captivity, rebels employed diverse methodologies of attack: political education, critique, protest, organizing, cultural production, litigation, subversion, refusal, rebellion, retaliation, hostage-taking, sabotage, armed struggle, and the intimate labor of care." - Orisanmi Burton, Tip of the Spear
Understanding ourselves as capable of inhabiting the roles necessary to combat the rapidly expanding authoritarianism and fascism that threaten us daily, hourly even, is critical to our ability to RESIST and to our very survival.
Tip of the Spear equips us to Fight the Powers that be. Word to PE.
Join us on Wednesday, August 20 from 6:00-7:00 PM ET to discuss Tip of the Spear with Orisanmi Burton!