One of my favorite recent albums is Bambu’s EP Sharpest Tool in the Shed. Released in October 2020, it is a product of coronavirus and the George Floyd Rebellion. It speaks directly to the moment in the summer of 2020 when mutual aid networks proliferated, insurrection grew across the country, and the political logic of abolitionist communism was developed in the streets.
In the interlude track “Signing Off,” Bambu is quoted at an activist panel as he lays out the basic points of unity developed in the recent struggle:
“It’s still one rifle per family, still working for the party.
It’s not socialism versus communism or communism versus anarchy or whatever.
It’s about us toppling the machine and worrying about that shit when we win.
Dismantle the state, fuck the law, abolish the police, educate the masses, organize the hood.”
What can we make of this? Bambu is a communist. He is steeped in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, informed by his experience as a poor Filipino in California and referencing the Maoist movement in the Philippines. And yet, what is the political program that he lays out as the basic points of unity? “Dismantle the state, fuck the law, abolish the police, educate the masses, organize the hood.”
There is nothing here about seizing the state and wielding it to build socialism. It’s about self-organization to topple the power structures of the state and capitalism and build a new world from below. Here we see the fundamental challenge that abolitionism poses to Marxism-Leninism and all political orientations that seek to use the state as a tool for liberation.
Am I calling Bambu an anarchist? Regardless of his own self-identification, I’m not sure that would be a useful label. Here, our traditional linguistic/political categories fail us.
Bambu is an abolitionist communist, which necessarily entails an anti-state orientation. Abolitionism has fundamentally changed the political landscape of the left, and I think we’re still reckoning with what that means. Abolitionist communist practice has outstripped our theorization of it. As the George Floyd Rebellion recedes into the past, we need to sharpen our analysis and develop new theoretical tools for liberation.
A few places to begin:
William C. Anderson, The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition (2021)
Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval (2019)
Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study (2013)
The Invisible Committee, Now (2017)
Geo Maher, A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete (2021)