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5 points
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OK, so here’s some details:

Black is Back Open Letter
https://blackisbackcoalition.org/open-letter-to-brian-becker-of-the-answer-coalition-and-party-for-socialism-and-liberation/

PSL/ANSWER Response to Open Letter
https://blackisbackcoalition.org/the-black-is-back-coalition-responds-to-answer-psl-your-actions-speak-so-loudly-we-cant-hear-a-word-you-say/#answer

Black is Back Response to PSL/ANSWER Response
https://blackisbackcoalition.org/the-black-is-back-coalition-responds-to-answer-psl-your-actions-speak-so-loudly-we-cant-hear-a-word-you-say/

In the open letter, PSL/ANSWER is accused of scheduling a rally at the same date, time, and place as a rally planned by Black is Back and doing so as a form of opportunism and cooptation.

In the response, PSL/ANSWER says they didn’t set the date, the coalition running the rally did.

The Black is Back response is to say that PSL has never participated in their rally for the past 15 years, that they expected PSL to tell them about the Palestine rally directly instead of finding out about it via social, and that PSL told the Palestine coalition that PSL couldn’t do earlier than Nov 4 because of other things on the calendar (which they construe as insisting on Nov 4). They further state that Becker said PSL is under white leadership, but link to him saying “there is white leadership”, and then he says “most of our leadership is young Black and Latino and young Asian American”.

Read through it all. Take notes. Dig into the sources cited. Recognize hearsay.

I don’t know why Black is Back is doing what they’re doing here. I think it’s worth examining. I don’t trust the Becker brothers fully, and I’m more inclined to trust marginalized groups than old white guys, so I’m willing to maintain an open mind that PSL is led by bad actors and is part of controlled opposition. That said, the accusations against PSL are not convincing me at this time.

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3 points
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Thanks for summing it up! I think this more or less closes the case.

That said, the accusations against PSL are not convincing me at this time.

Same here. Though i did not like the rude, accusatory tone of PSL’s response…

They further state that Becker said PSL is under white leadership,

This frustrated me. When you go listen to the actual interview this is not what he said at all.

However if such conflicts and accusations persist in the future i think Becker should step down and allow some of that younger leadership he was talking about to take over.

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2 points

There have been other flare ups in the past. The Beckers have been active for a very long time, there’s bound to be some accusations and some actual missteps.

I think critical support is the order of the day - both for PSL and for APSP. They could both be in the wrong here, in different ways.

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3 points

I think critical support is the order of the day - both for PSL and for APSP.

Completely agree.

They could both be in the wrong here, in different ways.

That’s what it looks like to me. I cannot in good conscience say that either of them has acted perfectly. But i have long been of the opinion that expecting perfection from revolutionary, anti-imperialist and anti-colonial resistance movements is wrecker behavior.

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8 points
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PSL planned their pro Palestinian March nearly immediately after October 7th.

This reeks of psyop to cause infighting or negative media optics.

It is also completely bizarre and the article reads as if a person who has never left their basement wrote it. The PSL is stealing support from black groups??? Really? That’s their angle?

Also you can run marches whenever you want, you don’t have the rights to hold the only march in the capital city of a country on a given weekend.

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5 points
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All of that is fair i think and a good counter to the arguments made in connection to this specific conflict between the two marches, but nevertheless it seems that groups like the African People’s Socialist Party are still expressing a fair bit of displeasure at how PSL and ANSWER have been treating them. Their open letter contained some fairly harsh indictments of ANSWER, to which the latter from what i can tell responded quite dismissively and rudely.

I just wish there weren’t these kinds of conflicts to begin with, it seems to me like all of these groups should be on the same side and working together. Why do leftists have such a hard time understanding when to set disagreements aside for the sake of a common cause? Smh…

I think for me this topic is more or less closed now as i understand that what has finally been decided is that each will simply have their own march and not cancel it due to the other. That’s good enough, even if it would have been better if this ugly, divisive spat had not occurred.

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10 points
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Oh god, not Shea again…

Edit: is he seriously criticizing PSL for stealing support from black organizations? He really cannot be talking.

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6 points

i only know the uhuru movement as a token used by yankee tankie, who always called it the “ooroo movement”

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6 points
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I’ve always leaned towards PSL is a college fraternity in the American left, they have a serious rape culture and racism. So I’m not surprised they only think about money. I’ve been to their anti-war rallies before and they’ve been pushing their book (I’m not denying the content of the book, I haven’t read it).

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10 points

Those articles are from at least ten years ago. I don’t know what rallies you went to, but at mine they were denouncing the US and Israel and calling for decolonization, all without plugging their org. Obviously they aren’t perfect, and I’d like to look further into their successes and failures, but I’m not going to take decade old articles or Rainer f-ing Shea as sources for their failures.

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11 points

Can only speak to personal experience, but PSL and ANSWER are at just about every single protest or action in our city. Or they’re helping organize them. And they always do their best to center the communities that are deserving of spotlight in these moments.

And yes, they try to build their own org at the same time. That’s the point. It’d be co-opting if they just swept in and took credit, but they actively work with other orgs and help them with mobilization. We need these orgs to continue working with each other and building trust among themselves. Otherwise, how in the hell do we expect an eventual vanguard to emerge out of the currently decentralized movement?

What’s impressive too is that they maintain a presence yet aren’t some gigantic chapter with hundreds of cadre. Like you said, not above criticism, but they’re composed of hard working members that sacrifice a lot.

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