The Young Lords: A Reader

2. The Ideology of the Young Lords Party

16 2 The Ideology of the Young Lords Party This chapter reproduces part of a booklet, by the same title, that the Young Lords circulated among themselves, “friends of the Lords,” and community members. The essays contained in this chapter lay out key theoretical and practical commitments of the Young Lords. While they are not reproduced in this volume, it is important to note that the booklet contained eight different images across forty-one pages of text. The booklet was first written in February 1971 and first printed in February 1972. The reader will find many (though not all) of the essays in the original booklet reproduced here. Introduction (From the pamphlet Ideology of the Young Lords Party, written February 1971, first printing February 1972) This is the beginning of the ideology of the Young Lords Party. What is ideology? It is a system of ideas, of principles, that a person or group uses to explain to them[selves] how things operate in the world. Our ideology was developed out of the experiences of almost two years of struggling everyday with our people against their oppression. The systematic ideas and principles in this pamphlet are guiding us as to the best way to lead the liberation struggle of the Puerto Rican nation. These are not fixed, rigid ideas, but constantly developed as we constantly work to serve and protect the people. There are certain principles that are fixed and unchangeable to us, though. First, is collective leadership, not individual leadership. One individual can never see the whole of a problem. Only collectives of people, working together, can solve problems correctly. Second, we can understand nothing unless we understand history. One of the problems of the Puerto Rican and amerikkkan revolutionary movements is that they have not done systematic, scientific study of their history and so do not yet understand the countries that they wish to liberate. Third, a revolutionary must be one with the people, serving, protecting, and respecting the people at all times. “Wherever a Puerto Rican is, the duty of a Puerto Rican is to make the revolution.” GLORIA GONZALEZ FIELD MARSHAL The Ideology of the Young Lords Party 17 Definition of Terms (From the pamphlet Ideology of the Young Lords Party, written February 1971, first printing February 1972) When we begin to read and study things on revolution, on how other people’s [sic] have liberated themselves and how we can develop our revolution, we come across a lot of new words we have never heard or seen before. We should learn what the words mean and then learn how to explain those ideas to our brothers and sisters in ways they can understand. Nation: A people who have had the same history, culture, language, and usually have lived in the same territory for a long period of time. Colony: A nation which is controlled economically, culturally, militarily by another country and whose government is run by that other country. Capitalism: A way of running the economy of a nation, where a few of the people in the nation own the factories, trains, business, commerce, and the majority of the people workforthoseowners.Thefewcapitalistsmakelargeamountsofmoneybysellingwhatthe rest of the people make—the products, like dresses, cars, copper, oil. This is called profit. Vendepatria: A sell-out. One who has sold out his or her people for money or power. Contradiction: When two things are opposed to each other, for instance, right and wrong, up and down, good and bad. When you have a contradiction you have a problem that has to be solved. If someone says that the way to get to a place is by turning right, and someone else says it’s by turning left you can’t get to that place until the contradiction is solved—it’s either right or left. Jibaro: The mixture of mostly spanish and Taino, but also some Blacks, who developed in the mountains and campos of Puerto Rico mostly as small farmers and as peasants . The language is spanish, the culture Spanish and Indian. Afro-boricua: The mixture of mostly Spanish and African who developed in the sugar cane plantations and coasts of Puerto Rico doing fishing, and whose ancestors were slaves. Most Black Puerto Ricans try to call themselves mulattos when the language is Spanish, but the culture and customs are still mostly African, and when the racist societies of Spain and Amerikkka still treat them as though they are inferior. Class: The group of persons that an individual belongs...