Community READY Corps

REVOLUTIONARY BUILD AND DEFEND SELF-DETERMINISM (R.B.D.S.D.)

“Power is the ability to DEFINE phenomena and make it act in a designed manner.” — Minister Huey P. Newton

Self-determination demands the creation of and control over our own terms in order to define our own reality.
Minister Huey P. Newton was an advocate for new terms for a new reality. In his writing, he warned that when we rely on language inherited from previous eras and previous struggles, we risk conveying to the people that the conditions are the same. When the terms remain the same, the tactics tend to remain the same. Static language produces static strategy, even as reality shifts.
For Minister Huey P. Newton, terminology was not cosmetic. It was strategic. Political language shapes perception, expectation, and action. If the language does not arise from present conditions, then the politics will misalign with reality. New conditions require new concepts. New realities demand frameworks that emanate from the people themselves, not recycled formulas applied out of habit or reverence.
This insight is foundational.
If we are serious about creating self-determined spaces, then the ideology guiding that work must spring from us. It must reflect our material conditions, our assessments, and our responsibilities in the present. Self-determination is not only about building institutions. It is about asserting authorship over meaning, direction, and strategy.
Since roughly 1966 through the early 1970s in the United States, insurrectionary, state-capture revolutionary politics became a dominant framework within Black political life. Influenced by global decolonization struggles and national liberation wars, this approach understood change primarily as the seizure or overthrow of existing power structures. The objective was to capture institutions, redirect the state, and confront power directly in order to control it.
That framework assumed the state was something worth inheriting.
We reject that assumption.
We do not seek to inherit or rehabilitate a rotten state apparatus that was never designed for us and has consistently demonstrated hostility to our existence. We are not trying to capture what has already proven structurally incapable of serving our interests. Our task is different.
We advance REVOLUTIONARY BUILD AND DEFEND SELF-DETERMINATION (R.B.D.S.D.).
REVOLUTIONARY BUILD AND DEFEND SELF-DETERMINATION (R.B.D.S.D.) is not about taking control of an existing system. It is about building independent capacity. Institutions. Infrastructure. Economic systems. Political coherence. Community stability. Power is not seized first. It is constructed first.
This distinction is not academic. It is strategic.
Under insurrectionary, state-capture politics, force is oriented toward taking something from an existing entity in an attempt to co-opt and redirect it. Under REVOLUTIONARY BUILD AND DEFEND SELF-DETERMINATION (R.B.D.S.D.), force, if it appears at all, is defensive. It exists to protect people and to defend what has been built. The objective is not conquest. It is preservation.
The historical record in the United States makes this unmistakably clear.
Many of the most successful examples of Black collective advancement were not revolutionary movements. They were projects of self-determination. They focused on building economic independence, land ownership, education, internal governance, and community stability. And many of them were destroyed precisely because they worked.
The Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, often referred to as Black Wall Street, was a self-sustaining Black business and professional community with schools, churches, hospitals, newspapers, and dense internal economic circulation. In 1921, it was attacked, burned, and dismantled. The threat was not insurrection. The threat was independence.
Rosewood, Florida, was a stable Black town rooted in land ownership and internal cohesion. In 1923, it was attacked and erased. Families were displaced, land was stolen, and the community ceased to exist. This was not a revolt against the state. It was an attempt to live outside dependency.
Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898, saw Black political participation and economic presence met with a violent coup. Elected officials were overthrown, Black leadership was driven out, and white supremacy was reinstalled through force. This was not revolution. It was civic self-determination crushed by organized, state-backed violence.
Ocoee, Florida, in 1920, saw Black residents organizing politically and exercising the right to vote driven out through terror and dispossession. Homes were burned. Families were expelled. Property was seized. Again, not insurrection. Autonomy and participation.
Elaine, Arkansas, in 1919, saw Black sharecroppers organizing for fair compensation and basic economic rights met with mass violence designed to annihilate that organizing. The goal was to crush economic self-determination before it could stabilize.
These were not attempts to overthrow the state. They were attempts to build autonomy. They were punished because autonomy itself was understood as a threat.
The lesson is not that self-determination is futile. The lesson is that self-determination without safety and protection is vulnerable.
That is why the framework must be clear and sequential.
Self-determination first. Build something real.
Safety second. Reduce exposure. Increase durability. Protect continuity.
Self-defense in service to both. Disciplined. Contextual. Defensive.
Build where we are.
From West Oakland to West Africa, REVOLUTIONARY BUILD AND DEFEND SELF-DETERMINATION (R.B.D.S.D.) means constructing our own institutions and linking local autonomy to global solidarity without dependency on failing systems. It means stabilizing what we build and defending it when necessary, not provoking confrontation for symbolism, but protecting people, infrastructure, and future capacity.
This requires a disciplined practice of original political thought. Not nostalgia. Not reenactment. But the continual effort to generate perspective rooted in who we are now, where we are now, and what we are actually facing.
We describe this practice as FACILITATING THE FLUX.
FACILITATING THE FLUX is predicated on FACTORING THE FLUX. It means consistently assessing shifting conditions. Power arrangements. Technologies of repression. Economic pressure. Social fragmentation. Narrative warfare. It means refusing fixed doctrine in favor of continual evaluation grounded in material reality.
Out of that practice emerges REVOLUTIONARY BUILD AND DEFEND SELF-DETERMINATION (R.B.D.S.D.).
Build where we are.
Construct what serves us.
Stabilize it.
Defend it.
Figure. Factor. Fix according to the flux.
This is not rhetorical.
This must be material.
This must be disciplined.
This must be a discipline.

IF YOU MAD ABOUT NIKKI I GOT SOME S**T
THAT SHOULD REALLY P**S YOU OFF:
Turning Point USA in Oakland Cheyenne Kenney Hammerlock and the Recall Right

With all the justifiable ourrage aboit Nickki Minaj's appearances and her decision to align herself publicly with Turning Point USA on a national stage. And there are real reasons people are upset. Nicki Minaj has praised Donald Trump amplified misleading narratives about violence in Nigeria and appeared at Turning Point USA events. Those choices matter. They signal alignment. They legitimize a political project. They deserve scrutiny. But it is disingenuous to perform outrage about Nicki Minaj and Turning Point USA nationally while being complicit and complacent about Turning Point USA’s movements and its surrogates operating right here in Oakland.
The Nicki s**t is loud.
But the Oakland s**t is real.
Let’s start where the Oakland story actually starts.
Hammerlock
Elizabeth Kenney and Travis Kenney are members of the punk band Hammerlock. The band’s catalog includes openly racist violent and misogynistic titles that are part of the public record.
Examples include
• Sly Little F****t
• Snide Little F****t
• Knock Her Out
• Violence
Hammerlock has long been associated with far right punk scenes. There are alleged ties between figures connected to that scene and Proud Boys adjacent circles as well as alleged connections to January 6 related activity.
Cheyenne Kenney
Cheyenne Kenney the daughter of Elizabeth Kenney and Travis Kenney of Hammerlock is the leader of Turning Point USA in the Bay Area and Oakland. Her position places her directly inside a national MAGA aligned political organization operating locally in Oakland. This is a direct line from cultural background to political leadership.

WHAT TURNING POINT USA IS:

Turning Point USA is a national right wing political organization focused on youth recruitment activist training media production and political pipeline building. It feeds people into campaigns conservative media local pressure efforts and institutional influence operations.
Founded and led for years by Charlie Kirk the organization is closely aligned with MAGA politics and structured to embed conservative ideology into spaces that do not always appear overtly partisan. It relies on culture war framing faith language and crisis narratives rather than explicit party branding.
Turning Point USA does not just mobilize voters. It builds ecosystems.
Turning Point USA in Oakland
In Oakland Turning Point USA has not been peripheral. It has been a critical part of the Recall Right ecosystem and a critical part of the broader political environment shaping Oakland’s civic life.
The Recall Right is not defined by recalls alone. Recalls are a tactic. The Recall Right is an ecosystem.
That ecosystem includes
• Narrative pressure around crime disorder and moral collapse
• Media amplification and repetition doomloops
• Local surrogates who normalize MAGA/Right-wing ideology

Turning Point USA fits into this ecosystem by supplying framing trained political actors and legitimacy pipelines that allow Recall Right politics to move across multiple arenas without always being labeled as right wing.
This is how national organizations embed locally.
They don’t announce themselves.
They normalize themselves.

THE OAKLAND NAACP IN N OUT PRAYER GATHERING:

One of the most visible local engagements involving Turning Point USA’s Oakland area leadership occurred at the In N Out prayer gathering where Cheyenne Kenney spoke publicly.
The event was organized by the Oakland NAACP along with local pastors and faith leaders with Acts Full Gospel Church listed as the rain location meaning the gathering would move indoors there if weather made the outdoor site impractical.
The significance of this moment is not confusion about who was present. It is the fact that Turning Point USA aligned leadership was given space and legitimacy within a civic and faith adjacent forum during a period of heightened political tension in Oakland.
This reflects a broader pattern in Oakland’s political environment where national right wing actors are able to participate openly in local civic spaces while operating through alignment rather than explicit branding.
Turning Point USA does not lead locally with MAGA branding.
It leads with presence proximity and narrative coordination.
That visibility matters because it is how national political machinery establishes and maintains local legitimacy.
The Oakland expression is real because it shapes outcomes.
This is not about supporting or opposing recalls.
Recalls are a tactic.
The issue is the ecosystem using them alongside many other tactics.
If you want to understand what this looks like in Oakland don’t stop at rallies or personalities. Watch Council.
Watch the votes not the speeches.
Watch who aligns when it matters.
Watch who abstains who’s absent and who becomes the swing.
Watch how unpopular outcomes get reframed afterward as common sense.
This is how power embeds.
It doesn’t always announce itself as MAGA.
It shows up as safety order faith and doing what’s necessary.
And then it hardens into political alignment.
If accountability is the goal the focus cannot stop at individuals. It has to include the organizations the networks and the local machinery shaping political outcomes in Oakland.
That includes Turning Point USA and the Recall Right ecosystem.
What must be done
Naming the problem is not enough. If Turning Point USA and the Recall Right ecosystem have been shaping Oakland’s political environment then the response has to be organized disciplined and local.

• Stop treating this as episodic.
These dynamics are ongoing not one off moments.

• Map the local network by members.
Elected officials and appointed commissioners
Faith leaders and nonprofit heads
Media figures and narrative amplifiers
Political operatives and consultants
Campus and youth organizers
Board and commission appointees

• Watch Council with discipline.
Votes attendance abstentions alignment patterns.

• Challenge "common sense" framing immediately.
Crime panic and moral urgency are political tools.

• Build parallel legitimacy.
Faith spaces nonprofits and civic forums or any political space for that matter cannot be ceded by default.

• Name the infrastructure not just the messengers.
Pipelines matter more than personalities.

• Prioritize contribution over catchphrase.
Slogans don’t build power. Organization does.

• Organize for durability not outrage.
Outrage spikes. Structure lasts.

The Nicki s**t is loud.
But the Oakland s**t is real.
And real problems require structure clarity and organization.
The Nicki s**t is loud.
But the Oakland s**t is real.
And real problems require structure clarity and organization.

C.R.C. COMMUNITY REPORT BACK: Shout out to Davey D, for the work he and his little man are doing in their community to help with clean ups. Was a pleasure to come by and work with them to keep Oakland clean. We all we got!
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