Podcast appearances and mentions of Cedric Robinson

In this episode, I cover part one of Cedric Robinson's "Black Marxism." Please consider donating to one of the following organizations: Palestinian Children's Relief Fund: https://pcrf1.app.neoncrm.com/forms/general United Nations Relief and Works Agency: https://donate.unrwa.org/gaza/~my-donation Middle East Children's Alliance: https://secure.everyaction.com/1_w5egiGB0u0BAfbJMsEfw2 Twitter: @DavidGuignion IG: @theory_and_philosophy

With H. L. T. Quan and Dylan Rodríguez. This is the final installment of our three-part mini series, 'Beyond the Ballot Box', which explores some of the major political currents in US politics today. Chris Browne and James Kelly are joined by H. L. T. Quan and Dylan Rodríguez for a conversation about life in times of fascism. We explore concepts such as state addiction, anti-democracy, ungovernability and democratic living. We also touch on the work of Cedric Robinson, and what we can learn from Black abolition feminist praxis. Become Ungovernable: An Abolition Feminist Ethic for Democratic Living is out now. Podcast listeners can get 40% off the book on plutobooks.com using the coupon PODCAST at the checkout. --- H. L. T. Quan is a political theorist and an award-winning filmmaker. She is an Associate Professor of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Quan is the author of Growth Against Democracy: Savage Developmentalism in the Modern World and editor of Cedric J. Robinson: On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance. Dylan Rodríguez is a teacher, scholar, organizer and collaborator based at the University of California-Riverside, where he works in the Department of Black Study as well as the Department of Media and Cultural Studies. He is the author of a number of books including White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logic of Racial Genocide, which won the 2022 Frantz Fanon Book Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

Friends! Comrades! Welcome to another episode of the Radio Reversal podcast, continuing our series on Disaster, Crisis & Collective Futures. If you haven't already listened to the first couple of episodes in this series - never fear! You can jump in fresh here, or head back and listen to Episode 12 - After the Flood & Episode 13 - Disaster Communism with Nick Southall. In these episodes, we chatted about weather events like Cyclone Alfred & what happens during “disasters”: how the parameters of political possibility shift, sometimes incrementally, and sometimes all at once. We talked about two very different expressions of these political ruptures: “disaster capitalism,” where corporations and the state use these events as opportunities to expand state and corporate power and to find new frontiers of capitalist exploitation, and “disaster communism,” in which communities self-organise to support one another, forge networks of mutual aid and care, and build a genuinely radical sense of “class power.”This week, Nat, Jonno & I (Anna) decided to focus a bit more on the way that these dynamics operate in the specific conditions of settler colonialism, especially here in so-called australia. We're engaging with these topics as settlers, living uninvited on unceded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands, and this is perhaps part of why we are so interested in the way that crises operate as key moments in which settlers are brought into new forms of colonial complicity. In particular, we are digging into a concept that we've been talking about for a few years now: the idea of “crisis colonialism.” We use this as a shorthand way to think about how settler colonial states use periods of crisis - economic depressions, world wars, ecological disasters - as fuel for settler colonial nation-building. In listening back to and editing this week's episode, I realised (largely thanks to a generative conversation with Dr. Jamal Nabulsi, whose incendiary and vital work you can find here and here) that a lot of what we're thinking about in this episode is affect - how people feel during crises, and how those collective emotions are operationalised and weaponised for a variety of political projects. This is a key part of both “disaster capitalism” and “disaster communism,” which we dig into in more detail at the beginning of this episode. But affect is also an important part of our analysis of “crisis colonialism,” and especially the way that settler colonies use moments of crisis to manufacture and secure settler consent for colonial governance through a rotating set of strategies, ranging from fear-based moral panics through to the construction of ideas of “mateship” and community. So in this week's episode, we're looking closer at these dynamics. How exactly do settler colonial states take advantage of periods of crisis? How do these moments become repurposed as fuel for nation-building? How does “securitisation” and policing fit into this process? And as settlers who are engaged in communities of struggle and committed to disrupting settler colonialism… how can we ensure that our collective efforts in these moments don't become fuel for the colonial project that caused the crisis in the first place? This is a big, juicy episode, which means that we talk about (or reference) a bunch of important scholarship that helps us to understand the origins of colonial racial capitalism and the “disaster” horizon of the present. In kicking off with some belated “definitional work,” as Nat puts it, we start by sketching out a working understanding of “disaster capitalism.” We continue our chat about Naomi Klein's 2007 “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and her formative analysis of the way that corporations and states alike use periods of disaster, or “shocks,” to cultivate new “frontiers” to exploit. Klein talks about a number of examples of this phenomenon: from the ways that the destructive impacts of “natural disasters” like the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami can be used to create the conditions for massive land grabs and accelerated privatisation and development under the guise of “reconstruction”; through to the construction of an entire fear-based industry of “homeland security” after the 9/11 terror attacks in the US. We follow this with a very brief chat about Antony Loewenstein's (2015) Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing out of Catastrophe, where he expands and updates Klein's analysis to trace the diverse ways that disasters have become “big business,” looking at - as he puts it - the way that “companies cash in on or­ganized misery in a hidden world of privatized detention centers, militarized private security, aid profiteering, and destructive mining.” A thread that we allude to in the podcast but don't extend is that these works are both interested in the affective impact of disasters on populations: the way that the confusion and “shock” of these events can be quickly turned into fear and suspicion which takes root within the established furrows of colonialism, racism and white supremacy; and which forms the basis of a new economy of privatised security, mass incarceration, and surveillance. Competing against this economy of fear, however, is a counter-economy of generosity, care and radical love that also takes root during disasters. We briefly return to Nick Southall's brilliant account of “disaster communism,” discussed at length in last week's show. We then turn our attention to the “permanent crisis” of settler colonialism, a phrase drawn from Robin D G Kelley's 2017 piece “Crisis: Danger, Opportunity & The Unknown,” in which he describes how colonial racial capitalism “produces something akin to a permanent state of crisis” because it is “built on fictions that must be constantly shored up, not for its victims but for those who stand to benefit.” We trace these contradictory fictions all the way back to the emergence of penal colonialism as a response to the crisis of prison overcrowding in Europe, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, Cedric Robinson, Walter Rodney and Sylvia Federici to emphasise that penal colonialism was both a form of, and a factory for, crisis-management techniques. Finally, we reflect on the many, violent fictions that have been required to enable and sustain the settler colonial project in so-called australia. We draw here on the incredible body of work by First Nations scholars, including Mununjahli & South Sea Islander scholar Chelsea Watego, Darumbal and South Sea Islander scholar and journalist Amy McQuire, Amangu Yamatji theorist Crystal McKinnon, Yuin scholar and criminologist Amanda Porter, Meintagk & Tanganekald scholar Irene Watson, Gumbaynggirr historian Gary Foley and Goenpul scholar Aileen Moreton-Robinson (among many others!) to understand the foundational contradictions of settler colonialism, and why they create the conditions of “permanent crisis” here in so-called australia.From here, I draw out a point that I explore in my PhD thesis (supervised by Chelsea Watego, David Singh, Liz Strakosch & Alissa Macoun), in which I argued that Indigenous peoples' unceded sovereignty and persistent resistance to colonisation represents a foundational and irresolvable contradiction for settler colonial states, which renders them constantly on the precipice of political crisis. This foundational crisis leads settler colonial states to develop robust and sophisticated techniques of crisis-management, ranging from repressive apparatus of policing, prisons, surveillance and punitive systems of state control; through to piecemeal liberal concessions, reforms, and promises of “inclusion.” So what does this mean for how we approach the coming storm? We end this episode with some reflections on how we can build our collective ability to resist colonial complicity: how to refuse the promise of liberal reform; how to reject all attempts to narrow our care, grief and rage to those deemed “grievable” by the colonial state; and how we might work to align ourselves instead with everyone, everywhere, who is fighting to dismantle the colonial capitalist death machinery that causes the “permanent crisis” of the present. Yours in solidarity,The Radio Reversal Collective This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit radioreversal.substack.com

This is the conclusion of our two part interview with Andrew Krinks on his recently published book White Property, Black Trespass: Racial Capitalism and the Religious Function of Mass Criminalization.  Today we explore the religious functions police play for Christian societies, in particular the US, and their relationship to theological concepts of redemption and salvation. We also talk about religious discipline, labor discipline and regimes of prison labor, which is obviously topical with renewed discussions of incarcerated fire fighters with the recent wildfires in Southern California. Krinks also explains why the dehumanization of prisons should not be understood as a violation of their mandate, but a fundamental aspect of it, one that also serves a function within the religious ideologies from which the prison emerges. Definitely check out part one of this conversation if you missed it and if you are inclined to up a copy of the book, which is a fascinating read, check out our friends at Massive Bookshop who use the proceeds from their book sales to bail people out of jail.  I also just want to plug that we have an ongoing video series on our YouTube channel with Mtume Gant who is a filmmaker, media critic, and professor of film, where we are reading and discussing Cedric Robinson's book Forgeries of Memory and Meaning. And if you like this conversation I think you'll find a lot of resonance with those discussions as well as they really go into how and when race-making processes are instrumentalized in the media, using historical examples. We aim to bring you content multiple times per week, sometimes it's in video from, sometimes it's in audio form, so make sure that you subscribe to our podcast feed as well as to our YouTube channel. In order to release this much work, requires a great deal of support from our listeners and viewers. We will have another study group starting up in late February and that will be open to all of our patrons as well. Thank you so much for all of your support, and if you would like to join the wonderful community of folks who make this show possible, become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month at Patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.   Links: Billy Graham and the caskets made at Angola Prison. Recent video episode on the California Wildfires with Mel Lopez and Alejandro Villalpando Forgeries of Memory and Meaning with Mtume Gant White Property, Black Trespass: Racial Capitalism and the Religious Function of Mass Criminalization through Massive Bookshop       .

In this episode we speak with Andrew Krinks about his recent book White Property, Black Trespass: Racial Capitalism and the Religious Function of Mass Criminalization.  The book is really interesting and I highly recommend it, this is part 1 of a 2 part discussion we recorded on it. You can pick it up from Massive Bookshop the bookstore that uses their revenue from book sales to bail people out of jail. In this discussion Krinks goes into the religious function that the mass criminalization of Black, Brown, and dispossessed peoples serves within the racial capitalist system. Engaging with Marxist and materialist explanations as well as Christian theologians and bourgeois philosophers, we get into how police and prisons are tethered deeply with religious ideology, which also finds quarter within the so-called secular theorists who provided the political philosophical underpinnings of the capitalist system. We also get into dynamics of race making and racialist thinking by way of folks like Cedric Robinson and Ruth Wilson Gilmore to examine the connection between race making and property relations.   I'll also note that last year we hosted a video conversation with Melayna Kay Lamb and Tia Trafford about the philosophical underpinnings of police power that has some important areas of overlap with this discussion as well, but focuses a bit more on European secular philosophy and policing. Starting on Monday the 6th we'll be hosting a new live series on our YouTube channel with Mtume Gant who is a filmmaker, media critic, and professor of film, where we will be talking about Cedric Robinson's Forgeries of Memory and Meaning. So if you like this conversation I think you'll find a lot of resonance with those discussions as well as they really go into how and when race-making processes are instrumentalized in the media, using historical examples. And lastly it is a new year, and we have a ton of new content coming this year. Last year we published 115 video episodes, and 38 audio episodes. We hope to be similarly productive again this year, but in order to do that we do need your support to be able to put in the amount of time necessary to get all that work done. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month. We should have another study group starting up in February and that is open to all of our patrons as well. So head over to Patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism and kick in a $1 a month or more to that effort.

The phrase "racial capitalism" was used by Cedric Robinson to describe an economy of wealth accumulation extracted from cheap labor, organized by racial hierarchy, and justified through white supremacist logics. Now, in the twenty-first century, the biotech industry is the new capitalist whose race-based exploitation engages not only labor but racialized consumption. This arrangement is upheld through US drug policy, which over the past century has created a split legal system—one punitive system that criminalizes drug use common among Black, Brown, and lower-income communities and another system characterized by compassion and care that medicalizes, and thus legalizes, drug use targeted to middle-class White people. In the award-winning book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America (U California Press, 2023), a trio of authors—Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg—explain how this arrangement came to pass, what impacts it has, and what needs to be done. This remarkable book won the 2023 Rachel Carson Book Prize from the Society for the Social Studies of Science. This interview was a collaborative effort among Professor Laura Stark and graduate students at Vanderbilt University in the course, “American Medicine & the World.” Please email Laura with any feedback on the interview or questions about how to design collaborative interview projects for the classroom. email: laura.stark@vanderbilt.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

The phrase "racial capitalism" was used by Cedric Robinson to describe an economy of wealth accumulation extracted from cheap labor, organized by racial hierarchy, and justified through white supremacist logics. Now, in the twenty-first century, the biotech industry is the new capitalist whose race-based exploitation engages not only labor but racialized consumption. This arrangement is upheld through US drug policy, which over the past century has created a split legal system—one punitive system that criminalizes drug use common among Black, Brown, and lower-income communities and another system characterized by compassion and care that medicalizes, and thus legalizes, drug use targeted to middle-class White people. In the award-winning book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America (U California Press, 2023), a trio of authors—Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg—explain how this arrangement came to pass, what impacts it has, and what needs to be done. This remarkable book won the 2023 Rachel Carson Book Prize from the Society for the Social Studies of Science. This interview was a collaborative effort among Professor Laura Stark and graduate students at Vanderbilt University in the course, “American Medicine & the World.” Please email Laura with any feedback on the interview or questions about how to design collaborative interview projects for the classroom. email: laura.stark@vanderbilt.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The phrase "racial capitalism" was used by Cedric Robinson to describe an economy of wealth accumulation extracted from cheap labor, organized by racial hierarchy, and justified through white supremacist logics. Now, in the twenty-first century, the biotech industry is the new capitalist whose race-based exploitation engages not only labor but racialized consumption. This arrangement is upheld through US drug policy, which over the past century has created a split legal system—one punitive system that criminalizes drug use common among Black, Brown, and lower-income communities and another system characterized by compassion and care that medicalizes, and thus legalizes, drug use targeted to middle-class White people. In the award-winning book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America (U California Press, 2023), a trio of authors—Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg—explain how this arrangement came to pass, what impacts it has, and what needs to be done. This remarkable book won the 2023 Rachel Carson Book Prize from the Society for the Social Studies of Science. This interview was a collaborative effort among Professor Laura Stark and graduate students at Vanderbilt University in the course, “American Medicine & the World.” Please email Laura with any feedback on the interview or questions about how to design collaborative interview projects for the classroom. email: laura.stark@vanderbilt.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The phrase "racial capitalism" was used by Cedric Robinson to describe an economy of wealth accumulation extracted from cheap labor, organized by racial hierarchy, and justified through white supremacist logics. Now, in the twenty-first century, the biotech industry is the new capitalist whose race-based exploitation engages not only labor but racialized consumption. This arrangement is upheld through US drug policy, which over the past century has created a split legal system—one punitive system that criminalizes drug use common among Black, Brown, and lower-income communities and another system characterized by compassion and care that medicalizes, and thus legalizes, drug use targeted to middle-class White people. In the award-winning book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America (U California Press, 2023), a trio of authors—Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg—explain how this arrangement came to pass, what impacts it has, and what needs to be done. This remarkable book won the 2023 Rachel Carson Book Prize from the Society for the Social Studies of Science. This interview was a collaborative effort among Professor Laura Stark and graduate students at Vanderbilt University in the course, “American Medicine & the World.” Please email Laura with any feedback on the interview or questions about how to design collaborative interview projects for the classroom. email: laura.stark@vanderbilt.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/medicine

The phrase "racial capitalism" was used by Cedric Robinson to describe an economy of wealth accumulation extracted from cheap labor, organized by racial hierarchy, and justified through white supremacist logics. Now, in the twenty-first century, the biotech industry is the new capitalist whose race-based exploitation engages not only labor but racialized consumption. This arrangement is upheld through US drug policy, which over the past century has created a split legal system—one punitive system that criminalizes drug use common among Black, Brown, and lower-income communities and another system characterized by compassion and care that medicalizes, and thus legalizes, drug use targeted to middle-class White people. In the award-winning book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America (U California Press, 2023), a trio of authors—Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg—explain how this arrangement came to pass, what impacts it has, and what needs to be done. This remarkable book won the 2023 Rachel Carson Book Prize from the Society for the Social Studies of Science. This interview was a collaborative effort among Professor Laura Stark and graduate students at Vanderbilt University in the course, “American Medicine & the World.” Please email Laura with any feedback on the interview or questions about how to design collaborative interview projects for the classroom. email: laura.stark@vanderbilt.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

The phrase "racial capitalism" was used by Cedric Robinson to describe an economy of wealth accumulation extracted from cheap labor, organized by racial hierarchy, and justified through white supremacist logics. Now, in the twenty-first century, the biotech industry is the new capitalist whose race-based exploitation engages not only labor but racialized consumption. This arrangement is upheld through US drug policy, which over the past century has created a split legal system—one punitive system that criminalizes drug use common among Black, Brown, and lower-income communities and another system characterized by compassion and care that medicalizes, and thus legalizes, drug use targeted to middle-class White people. In the award-winning book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America (U California Press, 2023), a trio of authors—Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg—explain how this arrangement came to pass, what impacts it has, and what needs to be done. This remarkable book won the 2023 Rachel Carson Book Prize from the Society for the Social Studies of Science. This interview was a collaborative effort among Professor Laura Stark and graduate students at Vanderbilt University in the course, “American Medicine & the World.” Please email Laura with any feedback on the interview or questions about how to design collaborative interview projects for the classroom. email: laura.stark@vanderbilt.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

The phrase "racial capitalism" was used by Cedric Robinson to describe an economy of wealth accumulation extracted from cheap labor, organized by racial hierarchy, and justified through white supremacist logics. Now, in the twenty-first century, the biotech industry is the new capitalist whose race-based exploitation engages not only labor but racialized consumption. This arrangement is upheld through US drug policy, which over the past century has created a split legal system—one punitive system that criminalizes drug use common among Black, Brown, and lower-income communities and another system characterized by compassion and care that medicalizes, and thus legalizes, drug use targeted to middle-class White people. In the award-winning book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America (U California Press, 2023), a trio of authors—Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg—explain how this arrangement came to pass, what impacts it has, and what needs to be done. This remarkable book won the 2023 Rachel Carson Book Prize from the Society for the Social Studies of Science. This interview was a collaborative effort among Professor Laura Stark and graduate students at Vanderbilt University in the course, “American Medicine & the World.” Please email Laura with any feedback on the interview or questions about how to design collaborative interview projects for the classroom. email: laura.stark@vanderbilt.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

Mentioned in this episode:SBCC American Ethnic Studies - https://www.sbcc.edu/americanethnicstudies/Chicano Power Movement - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicano_MovementBlack Power Movement - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_power_movementEl Paso Del Norte - https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/el-paso-del-norteChicano Secret Service - https://www.facebook.com/ChicanoSecretService/El Teatro Campesino - https://elteatrocampesino.com/Cedric Robinson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedric_RobinsonGeorge Lipsitz - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_LipsitzChela Sandoval - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chela_SandovalClyde Woods - https://cbsr.ucsb.edu/news/remembering-clyde-woodsAnything But Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles by Rodolfo F. Acuña - https://www.versobooks.com/products/1533-anything-but-mexicanRacial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi - https://www.routledge.com/Racial-Formation-in-the-United-States/Omi-Winant/p/book/9780415520317Ramón Favela - https://www.arthistory.ucsb.edu/people/ram%C3%B3n-favelaLiberation Theology - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theologyHoliday in Cambodia by the Dead Kennedys - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_in_CambodiaDomestic Policy of the Ronald Raegan Administration - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_policy_of_the_Ronald_Reagan_administrationAngela Davis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_DavisSBCC's Courageous Conversations for Outrageous Times for the Chicana/o Culture Conference - https://www.facebook.com/events/784586975229427/Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly - https://www.hiddenfigures.com/Xicana/o/x Time and Space Exhibit at the Atkinson Gallery - https://sbcc.edu/newsandevents/pressreleases/2023-9-5-Atkinson-Gallery-Exhibition-Xicano-a-x-Time-Space.phpDel Pueblo Cafe - https://dpcsb.com/EOPS - https://www.sbcc.edu/eopscare/Rasquachismo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RasquachismoSB Farmer's Market - https://www.sbfarmersmarket.org/Quesadilla - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuesadillaMole - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_(sauce)Like Water for Chocolate - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_Water_for_Chocolate_(film)Chile Relleno - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile_rellenoShort Rib - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_ribsRibeye - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rib_eye_steakEl Taco de Mexico Oxnard - https://www.yelp.com/biz/jesses-el-taco-de-mexico-oxnardRudy's - https://www.rudys-mexican.com/Meun Fan Thai Cafe - https://meunfanthaicafe.com/ Carne Adovada (New Mexico) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdobadaCarnitas El Brother - https://www.carnitaselbrother.com/Yolanda's Mexican Cafe - https://www.yolandasmexicancafe.com/Andria's Seafood Restaurant - https://www.andriasseafood.com/Bristol Farms - https://www.bristolfarms.com/stores/la-cumbreBangkok Avenue - https://www.bangkokavenuetoaks.com/Finish the Fight Virtual Play - https://timesevents.nytimes.com/finishthefightLone Star - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Star_(1996_film)Human Flow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_FlowThe Pearl Button - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pearl_ButtonWashington Bullets by the Clash - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slOz1XFCUXEThe Black Power Mixtape - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Power_Mixtape_1967%E2%80%931975Race: The Power of an Illusion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race:_The_Power_of_an_IllusionThe Wind That Swept Mexico by Anita Brenner - https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292790247/Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo F. Acuna - https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/occupied-america-a-history-of-chicanos/P200000002694/9780137525508The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/27844/the-house-on-mango-street-by-sandra-cisneros/Federico Fellini - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_FelliniThe Brother from Another Planet - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brother_from_Another_PlanetEight Men Out - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Men_Out

In this episode Josh was joined by special co-host Noah Tesfaye and they interviewed several organizers from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) who have been organizing solidarity encampments this spring. This interview took place about a month ago, so the events they describe are not reflections of the most current activity on their campuses, but nonetheless this conversation is a useful look into the organizing going on in student encampments across the country. We also hosted livestreams recently with organizers at UCLA and Cornell, as well as multiple scholars who have faced repression or arrests for their involvement with organizing on their campuses. Thanks to Josh and Noah for hosting this conversation and to Seth Gunter for work editing this episode.  If you like the work that we do please become a patron of the show, even if just a small annual or monthly contribution. Recently we've had more people lowering their support or cancelling than we've had people signing up. So first of all just a shout-out to everyone who supports our work and makes it possible, but secondly we are trying to increase the amount of audio content we're releasing again which has led us to expanding the number of people we're working with as guest hosts and audio editors. And we would like to have the resources to also pay these folks for their work and continue to make some equipment upgrades. This week Noah and I will be out at a conference on the life's work of Cedric Robinson and we hope to capture some good audio and video content while we're out there as well that we can share with you all. Become a patron for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.  SDS's National Instagram and UMN SDS's twitter. 

‘Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition', by Cedric Robinson, has featured in countless anti-racist reading lists across schools and universities. The title suggests it will be a synthesis of Marxism and the Black struggle. In reality, it is an attempt to divide the two entirely. What is the ‘Black Radical Tradition', and how does the Marxist method apply to it? In this session, Fiona Lali will explore whether historical materialism can explain the development of racism, if the working class in the West can overcome racism, and whether a ‘black consciousness' exists.

Alyssa Calder Hulme: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Women of Ambition podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Calder Hume, and today we have Whitney Knox Lee. Whitney is a civil rights attorney, an equity and inclusion consultant, a mother and wife, and the host of the Empatrix podcast.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yes.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Thank you so much for being here, Whitney. Tell us a little bit about your podcast, because I think that encompasses a lot of these, uh, these different roles that  you fulfill and passionately. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: It really, yeah. It does. So, um, Impostrix podcast, we are going to be affirming the lived experiences of professionals of color who navigate imposter syndrome, white dominant culture, and racial toxicity at work. Um, and so really what that means is we're going to be diving into all that it means to be a professional of color, um, acknowledging that we are working within systems that sometimes were created to exclude us. Um, so we're going to be talking about like, how do we identify when we're [00:01:00] working within these systems and if these systems are like actively working against us and we are being gaslit about that, then what do we do? How do we deal with those types of conversations? Um, we're going to talk about the historical context of race and racism, um, here in the United States. And what that has to do with where we are now, um, as folks of color who are working in professions. And then we're also going to talk about like the science behind how racial traumas. affect us, affect our brains, affect our bodies, and in turn affect how we show up to the workplace, and whether or not and when we might be triggered by circumstances that are happening around us, whether that's within our work environment. Or like for me, it's mostly, uh, external facing when I'm working. Um, so I work as a civil rights attorney in the South and I represent folks who are incarcerated. [00:02:00] And what that means on a day to day is that I'm constantly going to jails and prisons and seeing people who look like me, who are behind bars and living in cages. Um, and so this, the science component I really want to get into to better understand for myself. When I'm leaving these jails and prisons and I'm feeling triggered and worked up and having to, um, Utilize all of these tools to kind of bring myself back to safety, um, why I'm feeling that way. Mm hmm.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: That sounds, I think that's so important that like, it sounds like you're talking about like embodiment, like mindfulness and being aware. And I would venture to say that no HR in America is set up to help people understand those. Pieces of themselves.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: No. And somebody recently asked me, we were talking about like the DEI profession. So diversity, equity, and inclusion. Sometimes there's a B at the end, which means belonging and [00:03:00] why that's important. And this was some, this was coming from a black woman who owned her own law firm. Um, and so she was asking really as an employer, like, why is this important? Why do we need this? Because these days, like. People aren't showing up to work and just being like overtly racist. And, you know, to answer that question, it's really about creating a community or a space within the workplace where we can feel like we belong, where we're seen and where it's psychologically safe for us to show up. And so if I am experiencing being triggered because of the work that I do, feeling safe. To talk about that, to raise that, um, and then having systems in play within our workplace that can support me in that, you know, it's, it's part of. The, the reason or the, the need for D E I B. Do you  Alyssa Calder Hulme: [00:04:00] see, I I've heard a lot of different things about diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, um, and we'll get to ambition. I always get off track, but I really want to ask you, um, as you know, per the normal way it goes in America. A lot of the times, um, there's a lot of performativity, uh, within the workplace. Um, D I, um. Groups being formed within companies and not really being informed or not being led by the correct people or not being educated Do you are you seeing that trend and is this some is this a another thing? We need to abandon and start over with or is it something we can work with do you think  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: I definitely think we can work? with it because Often what I see, so I work in the nonprofit world, um, and it may be different in the corporate world where theoretically there's more money. But what I see is often there are these like voluntary committees, like diversity committees, um, who are [00:05:00] tasked with doing this work. And oftentimes these committees are made of people of color. Who have other whole jobs within the organization and who are taking on this really emotion heavy, um, labor of trying to help this organization do whatever it is that the organization wants to do, whether that's be more inclusive, hire, um, from more diverse communities. Um, or, you know, whatever, whatever the goals are. And so I think it's a start, it's a start that people are talking about diversity or about equity or about inclusion. But I'd say two things. One, that these types of, um, movements within organizations need to be supported by power. Um, they need to be deputized. You know, they need to have resources to [00:06:00] actually be able to follow through with whatever the initiatives are that they're tasked with, I don't know, doing. Um, but also it needs to be supported by by the leadership. And so like they it needs money behind it. It needs recognition behind it. It needs support. So when I say support, I mean, like, I, I think executives We need to be lifting up the efforts of the DEI community or the DEI committee, attending the events, making things mandatory, um, you know, putting, walking the walk. We can't just say, okay, we're going to have a DEI committee, give them like a whole list of things to take care of, but then not give them any money, not give them the power to actually make the decisions. Like if you have a [00:07:00] committee and that committee makes a decision, but in order for the decision to actually be implemented within the organization, it has to go through two or three more layers of approval, then that's not actually giving that there should be no approval process. Exactly. Like that's not giving the committee the power to do anything because what's going to happen is it's going to come up against somebody, um, for approval who has not been a part of these conversations, who is not doing the work who might be removed from like. What the actual need is, um, who may not be a person of color and not saying that all people of color on the same page about this, but like it does require some internal personal work to be on this page of how do we make our environment more inclusive and how do we make our environment psychologically safe for folks of color to come to work here? Um, and then the last thing that I want to say about this is that. This work shouldn't [00:08:00] stop at diversity. Yeah, because it's not enough to have representation of people. And so when we talk about diversity, we're talking about quantity. We're talking about the number of people who are people of color or who are, um, gender non binary or who are LGBT or whatever, you know, the, the group. Um, it's not enough to just to have the numbers. If those numbers don't have any power and don't have any say within the organization. Um, so if. You're working at an organization that hires 50 percent folks of color, but all of those folks of color are in. Um, roles that are underpaid, um, overworked that, you know, maybe receptionists who have a lot of the front end kind of work load, but aren't really valued the same as. An attorney, you know, and in my [00:09:00] field, same as an attorney. So, um, then that's not, that's not inclusion. That's not equity. Um, it doesn't create an environment of belonging. All that you've done is created a diverse work environment. Yeah.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: No, I think, thank you. That's a, that's a really great answer. Is there, is there like a, a place to go to vet different companies and like, does Glassdoor have a diversity, equity, inclusion, quality control element, or is this mostly word of mouth to try and find a good workplace? Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: You know, I don't know the answer to that question. I think there may Is it indeed? It may be Glassdoor. One of these websites does have like a, where people who work there can provide feedback as to what the culture is like. And then they might say it's, you know, doing well or not doing well. Um, but honestly, you know, I think we learn this through our [00:10:00] interview process. Um, we learn it through our engagement with the organization that we're considering applying for or the company that we're considering applying for. Like what has their impact been on the community? Are they in the community or are they just like sucking resources from the community? Um, who are they hiring when we're talking to The receptionist like what do they look like? Yeah. Um, who are we seeing when we go into the building? Um, not just the website picture, right? Exactly  Alyssa Calder Hulme: And it's hard with online hiring processes.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: It is it is and then asking questions It's totally okay to ask in your interview like So do you have any equity or inclusion initiatives or, you know, stuff like that, what are, what's the breakdown of, of, uh, races that work at your organization? I mean, figure out a nicer way to say it or like a less, I don't know, blunt way, because also [00:11:00] this type of stuff, these types of questions do come with risk. Um, and the risk is they're going to decide that. You care too much. Yeah. And that you're not a good, you know, fit, quote, unquote for the company. Um, and that's fine. Like that's when you know that you don't want to work there. Um, but if it's something where like you need income to support your family, and this is the only interview that you've gotten in three months and you really don't have the luxury or flexibility to not get this job. Um, then yeah, you may not want to ask those questions. Yeah.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah, that's tough. Okay. Thank you for that. Um, let's shift now to ambition. Uh, we were talking a little bit before we started recording about your experiences with that word and your reflections on that word. Can you tell us a little bit about what that word means to you and what your thoughts, where they've led you? Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah, um, I don't think I've [00:12:00] ever thought about that word prior to preparing for this interview, um, and well, and listening to your podcast. And the reason is. Um, I don't think that being ambitious as a black woman is safe. Um, for me, it hasn't been historically being ambitious, wanting to do more than maybe what's expected of me or wanting, um, more of myself. Uh, I don't think that that's safe, and so it's not necessarily that I am not ambitious or that folks of color are not ambitious, but we do what I do, um, consider it just a little bit differently, maybe, um, and I don't, I don't have. a name for it. Um, I know [00:13:00] that I'm somebody that is very mission based and value driven in all of the work that I do. And I know that I'm stubborn. Um, I know that if somebody tells me that I can't do something, then I most certainly will be doing that thing. Um, but when we think about the history of black folks in America, um, it's never been safe for us to do anything other than what we've been told to do. We have never had kind of full ownership over our physical bodies. And so doing things that are outside of what's been prescribed for us to do has. been a threat. Yeah, to white people and to the dominant culture, which is white, white dominant culture. Um, and [00:14:00] so I think culturally, um, like for me and my family, I come from a middle class black family. Um, I grew up in Seattle. My parents. Went to college. They also got, um, advanced degrees. So I'm not like a first generation of anything, really. Everything that I've done before my everything that I've done, my parents have also done. And what I was blessed with as far as my privilege of being a middle class growing up middle class, um, is that I grew up believing that I could do whatever I wanted to do. Um, and that to do whatever I wanted to do, it was going to take some work and some action behind it. Um, but I never, that was never kind of packaged as this idea of being ambitious. Interesting.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: So, [00:15:00] um, in our last episode, I talked to Natalie, who's a Latina woman, um, and talked a lot about how she was brought up to also believe that she could do anything she wanted, but then when she, like, really was a teenager and becoming an adult and was confronted with a lot of the xenophobia and racism things, that was surprising to her, and she's had to work a lot to overcome that, and so she was frustrated that she hadn't been prepared better for that as a child. It sounds like you had some level of preparation and you knew a little bit more about what you were getting yourself into. Is that accurate? Yeah.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: So I do think, yes. Yeah. I think that's accurate as a black person. I don't know how to say this. The experience of black folks and Latinx folks is very different. Obviously, you know, I mean, I'm not telling you anything new, but one of the things I just had a conversation for Impostrix podcast with someone who identifies as Mexican who grew up [00:16:00] here in the United States. And what's clear to me is that for some, uh, Latinx folks, culture, there's almost like a bubble of culture, um, that they may be living within. For black people, for myself, I'll speak for myself only, it wasn't necessarily that. Um, our culture in my family is not very removed from white culture. We do not have. centuries of knowledge of our ancestry. So like, as far as I'm concerned, my family starts. In, you know, two or three generations ago in South Mississippi, I don't know where our family came from. So by the time my parents came of age and had us the culture that I was raised within was this white culture and it was a very, [00:17:00] um, like I knew that I was black. I knew what black people were up against. Um, but I also knew that my parents were able to overcome what they experienced, the racism that they experienced, um, to find what they considered to be success. And so I knew that it would be available to me, but that there were going to be challenges that I would face that white folks might not face.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah, the Black parents I've spoken with talk a lot about the burden and the absolute essential nature of preparing their children for the world. Walking down the street, going to school, getting jobs, getting pulled over. All of these things that many of us who might live in a bubble or who are part of the dominant culture just have no clue about. Um, so it sounds like survival and, and thriving with an asterisk is, is something that you were prepared to do, um, or, or set [00:18:00] up to do from your upbringing.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Um, yeah, I would say to some extent, I mean, I do, we're going to get into this, but you know, when thinking about imposter syndrome, I think part of the reason why I experience imposter syndrome and this feeling of not belonging or of being a fake or intellectual phony is because although I knew a little bit of what to expect. I still I look different than the people that I'm interacting with on a daily basis who have power like the ones that aren't behind bars. Yeah. Um, but also I don't have the, um, family history within the institutions that I think that some of. My white colleagues and counterparts have so I don't have that very kind of ingrained culture of privilege that [00:19:00] a lot of a lot of people. Yeah, right, grow up with. Yeah. And so I think to some extent like that still is still surprising to me that I'm still dealing with imposter syndrome when I'm 10 years. into lawyering.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Okay. So, so from, from the lawyer's perspective, you say you work in these prisons. Um, are you able to speak a little bit about the history of policing and the jailing system? And, you know, we're talking about where belonging and imposter syndrome, like a lot of those institutions were established to capture, recapture enslaved people to make sure that they were staying where they are. Like that is the system that was really built for. Black people that the lawyer world being behind the desk rather than behind the bars like no wonder there's imposter syndrome Because it's literally not Structured for you. Can you do you have more to add to that or I don't know  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yes, I mean that's the perfect example, right? I mean this is this is like the [00:20:00] conflict that I live with like this is the purpose for imposter X podcast because I It's bizarre. It's a bizarre reality to be for me, for me to be someone that literally all it took was a little bit of luck and like not getting caught doing something that somebody else thought. Might be illegal. Otherwise I could be on the other side of those bars, you know, it's, it's that easy. And so to, to your question about like the history of policing, I mean, you're totally right. So our, um, legal system and our policing system is all based on the recapture. Of enslaved persons, as you said, um, it was never meant to provide safety for black folks.[00:21:00]  It was never meant to be fair for black folks. Um,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: it was about protecting white property, right? Whether that's human people or, you know, shipping things down at the docks, right?  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: And that's. You know, our constitution and the, our, our constitutional rights. The right to due process, the right to equal protection under the law, all of these things were never meant for black people. And it took going to court to enforce these rights, to get recognition. And not just black people, it wasn't meant for anybody other than white Europeans. You know, because through the years, there have also been Supreme Court cases where Japanese people are having to establish their citizenship or their right to be here. Um, of course, Native Americans still, you know, are [00:22:00] not afforded all of the rights that  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Others are, um, people that live in a category. They are a, what do they call them? A legal, a legal group organization.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, people that live in our territories, Puerto Ricans don't have the same rights as people that live in mainland United States. Um, and so this system was never meant to benefit people that look like me. It was always meant to protect white. Um, and it's also this system that created what we know today as these racial categories of, you know, white, black, um, Asian, because before that, like it was just, we were living in our countries just being people. But then in 1619 with the start of the slave trade and the [00:23:00] start, well, not the start, but the start of people coming to what's now the United States. is when white settlers had to create distance. from the dark skinned people that were getting off the boat. And they needed to do that, not only for themselves as the ruling class, but for white indentured servants as well. They needed to create like the upper class, the middle class, who are like the overseers, the slave overseers. And then the lower class, the people that weren't people, you know, the people that counted for Three fifths of a vote, you know, um, and so it's all of this history and context that I think is really important for me, um, when I'm thinking about lawyering and how I'm showing up, um, because many times it really does feel as though I am an agent of this system that was designed to keep me subservient. Um, and so when we're [00:24:00] talking about ambition, I mean, everything I do is ambitious because everything that I do outside of I don't know, get welfare. I don't know, whatever people, whatever the, the dominant culture sees as my place as a black woman, whatever I do is something above and beyond what's been intended for me. And so, um, like for me, that's just living. That's just like life and showing up to work today, um, or showing up to my family today. Um, and it does, as I said, it comes with risk. It's not safe. I don't work. In psychologically safe environments. A lot of the time. Um, my like workplace where I go to do work is fine, but like everywhere else isn't going into courthouses. That's not safe. It's triggering for me. Um, I'm not often. I'm having to prove that I'm an attorney where other people aren't having to prove that their [00:25:00] attorney. I have to dress more professionally than my counterparts. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I I've shown up to court in a suit, which I feel like is appropriate, but there's a white man who's shown up and like wrinkled khakis and a sport jacket. Um, I'm not a part of the club of people that so when you go into courtrooms and if you're there a little bit early, you'll often see that there are attorneys that have like secluded themselves. Um, away from all of us common feet people, um, and they're like having chats, they're bantering and sometimes the judge might be there with them. Um, the bailiffs might be there with them and they're just kind of chilling. Like sometimes in South Georgia, this happens, um, behind closed doors in the hallways, um, leading up to the judge's chambers. Sometimes it happens in the courtroom, but like, I'm not a part of that club. Um, and [00:26:00] part of it is that I I'm a nonprofit attorney. The part of it is that I'm a black woman. And like, if I step into that circle, then the whole mood and tone of that circle changes. So you had asked another question, I think about like. I'm not sure. I think I forgot the second part of that question.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: No, we were just talking about uh, imposter syndrome and feeling of belonging or not and how the systems like literally aren't built for certain people. And so no wonder when we step out of our prescribed roles we're feeling that imposter syndrome because it's not like, it's not a personal insecurity, it's like literally This wasn't meant for you. You were never supposed to be here and yet you are here. And so it sounds like a lot of the work that you're doing is how do we survive and thrive in those spaces and take [00:27:00] care, take care of yourself and like be aware? And it's just so compounded by race. And by, by racial disenfranchisement and like histories and, and even like you're saying like family histories, like your own personal location of like who you are and how you got here. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah, that's right. Because I will say to that in some of our, in some communities of color. Um, the more successful, um, according to the dominant culture, the more successful you are, the further away you are from your culture of origin. Um, and you are kind of considered, um, an outsider or like in the black community, you'll be considered maybe like an uncle Tom or somebody that's a sellout. Um, and so there's also, you know, this pressure from within some of our communities that if we are [00:28:00] being, I don't know, successful, if we earned a seat at the table, then, um, you know, we're, we're somehow selling out and, and, you know, sometimes, not all the time, because obviously there's plenty of times where we are successful and our communities are proud of us. Um, and I think both of those can happen. It's not either and. Yeah, but it's just  Alyssa Calder Hulme: so much more complicated.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Right, exactly.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: So my, my classic example is like of a white guy that's being introduced and it's like, oh, he's very ambitious. Everyone's like, right on. And if it's a woman, it's like, what does that mean? And I can see how for a person who's, who's not white, then there's even more of that compounding, like, Suspicion or like concern or like it really is that like crossing that line into not following the socially prescribed role and then you're being seen as deviant like that's the sociological word is like, and it's not just, you know, someone who's [00:29:00] breaking a law needs to be thrown in prison, but like you cross that line into social deviance and people are very suspicious. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: All of a sudden, right, right and power because you know one of the. Characteristics. So, um, Dr. Tima Okun is the person who's come up with these characteristics of white dominant culture or white supremacist culture. The terms are kind of used interchangeably. Um, and she talks about white dominant culture as this culture where Everything around us is taking on and adopting the value of the white middle class. Um, and so it shapes our institutions, it shapes our media, and it shapes the way that we see each other. And that includes whether we see somebody as good or bad, dangerous or not dangerous, or to your point, ambitious or not ambitious. Um, and so for folks of color, ambition is like a tightrope that you have to [00:30:00] walk, because the moment that You are perceived as a threat to power. Um, the moment You are not, you know, you're not useful anymore. And whether that's, um, somebody who's trying to get a job somewhere and maybe they're the person that holds the position that supervisory to them, um, feels as though they're. out of line for asking questions. Um, I know we all have heard of situations where like a white man basically can get away with some things that a woman can't. Um, and you know, for folks of color, it's even more that like a white man or a white woman can get away with something that a person of color, um, could not because the moment that we ask these questions, then it becomes, you know, people assign a tone to our voice. Thanks. Or, um, attitude, right. Aggression. Yeah. Whereas, you know, for white [00:31:00] folks. That same tone is not assigned. It's thought, like you said, of like a positive quality of, um, being ambitious or being curious or asking the next white question, right question, or, um, you know, it's just framed differently and we, in our society. Um, then this society that, you know, survives on, on capitalism, there's only so much power. And so we have this scarcity mindset. And that's one of these characteristics of white supremacist culture that Dr. Akun talks about is that there's not enough power to go around. And so people who have power have to hoard power and have to keep power. And people who don't have power, we have to keep them there. Because the alternative to this, like, imbalance is that everybody has power. And if everybody has power, then what does power really mean? Um, and so if we [00:32:00] want to keep this system where we have rich people, um, where we have, uh, people that I don't know are better off or are good, then we also have people who are bad and people who are poor and people who are less than. Um, and people are really tied to that, that system. Um, that's the system that our country was founded on. That's the system that's still in play. And, you know, I think what's really important is that capitalism, uh, I believe can't be separated from racialization and this idea of like racial. Um, capitalism where the value, um, so it's a process of deriving social and economic value from the racial identity of another person. And this term racial capitalism, um, was coined by Cedric Robinson [00:33:00] and his book, black Marxism, and it. He's talking about this idea that we can't have capitalism without having, um, exploitation of folks of color, because that's how we got our money, right? That's how we got our power in the United States is through exploiting folks of color. Um, and whether it was their labor or their physical person or their minds or their entertainment, the way that we sing, the way that we dance. Um, and we live in this world where the things that can be exploited from folks of color will be and all of the, you know, struggles or the like real life human issues that folks of color experience, just like white people, um, [00:34:00] is now made just an issue of folks of color. So like poverty, um, criminality. You know, and people use this, the fact that there's a, um, disparate impact that our criminal legal system has a disparate impact on folks of color. And they just say, well, that's because folks of color have a higher, I don't know, what is the word? They, they're more likely to commit crime. Like, that's not true. There's nothing about us that makes that true. Um, so yeah, I think I got a little bit off, off point, but I just really wanted to talk about just this idea of racial capitalism. Oh, yeah.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: I think it's really important and like what you're saying, like, in order for someone to be good or on the right track, it means that other people have to be off of it. And that's like one of these like binary thought processes and that's, you know, that's part of how the racialized system was established was like, [00:35:00] this is what is good and that is what is other. And so there's always that like foil that has to be there in order for the structure to function. And then, yeah, if everyone has power, if there's no foil, then. There is no power and everyone is, you know, no one can control other people. Like it's, it's just so fundamentally there. And, and I think what you're saying about ambition is how that, like being ambitious is putting yourself at risk always. Like that frames it so night, like, so not nicely, this isn't nice. Um, it frames it so accurately. Because you are threatening the system, and you know, we feel those in, you know, there's microaggressions, there's those little tiny interactions that happen. It's so interesting, because it's not like there's some big clash all the time. I mean, there are big clashes, but this is happening in these tiny, tiny moments throughout all of our lives, all the [00:36:00] time. It's like being reified, and like the The social response to being seen as that, like deviating from that path, that, that's like, um, in sociology, we call it enemy. Like it's, um, social punishment. I'm missing the exact word, but like, like people are just trying to get you back into your space constantly. And so if you're stretching beyond what is socially expected, you are putting yourself in greater harm and greater risk constantly, but also. People of color have to do that in order to survive because the system is not set up to support them. And so you are in this, I don't want to say no win situation, because I think there's, there are other pathways out there, but that's the reality if you're gonna be in the capitalism of the United States at this point in history. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah, it just [00:37:00] takes a lot of energy. Yeah. I mean it's very It's an exhausting thing because it does need to be purposeful. Like if we're going to go against like not even capitalism, I don't even have to like, I'm not even saying, you know, whatever, whatever your beliefs are about capitalism is fine. But if we're going to, um, create environments where it's safe for everybody to be ambitious. Um, then that takes effort and like affirmative action it takes when you're seeing something happen where maybe a person of color is being, um, identified as somebody who's aggressive or you know, you're in a boardroom and there's hiring decisions being made or promotion decisions being made and a person of color is getting passed up because they work too hard. You know, our role there as people, you know, if you have privilege is [00:38:00] to speak up and question it and not even say, Oh, you're wrong. That's racist. That's bad. But just to say, Can you tell me more about that? Can you like, I'm trying to follow your thought process. Can you just help me figure out where you're going? And by questioning in that way, and really trying to get the person to identify What their real concern is, you know, you might encourage them to like, say these words out loud so that then they're thinking to themselves, okay, maybe that's not, that doesn't actually sound. That didn't come out how I meant it, you know, when it did, but like, it just doesn't sound very good coming out and so, but allowing that person like engaging that person in conversation may help them to figure out like, what is it that they're looking for? And how can we like one is the thing that they're looking for the thing that actually needs to happen. And if so, like, how can we get there in a way that's more equitable, instead of, you know, putting [00:39:00] these labels on people based on stereotypes based on white fear of losing power, and I'm not wanting to share that power. Yeah.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Thank you. Um, with all this in mind, is there a space that can be created or is existing or that you've experienced where black ambition, people of color's ambition is safe within certain constraints or certain communities or places? Like, are you, do you, is there a safe place being built?  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: I think there are safe places for me. I have a sister circle. Um, you know, bringing it way back down to like the personal level, I have a community of people around me and we celebrate each other. We celebrate each other's accomplishments and we encourage each other to do the next thing if that's what they want to do, whatever that next thing be, [00:40:00] or sorry, whatever that next thing is. Um, I think in organizations like this is a role that the diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging work can can fill is creating a space where black ambition is safe. Um, but I think like. On the larger scale. No, I mean, we, we had a black president and you've seen what that's resulted in. I mean, like, there's no, we were able to elect somebody into office that holds, you know, the most powerful position in the world. And the backlash. We're still living that we will be living the backlash of that. Um, you know, probably throughout our lifetime. And so I don't know. I don't think that black ambition is safe, like on a larger scale. Um, [00:41:00] but I do think that there are communities where it is safe. Um, one of the first places that I found real kind of. I guess I just felt seen was an Essence magazine, um, reading through Essence magazine and reading about people like myself. Like, I don't know. I just felt for a couple of years I had a subscription before, um, COVID and I don't know, I just felt empowered and like I was seen when I was reading through that. Um, and so that's just like, A small example of a, of a space of a community. Um, but I, I mean, we're living in this racialized capitalistic system. So while we have that, no, I don't think that it black ambition is safe.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: How do you mind speaking a little bit to maybe how that's affecting your parenting? I mean, you said you're a mother. Oh, I know. It's like [00:42:00] a whole, a whole thing.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah, I'm terrified. So everything about being a black woman. Um, can be terrifying and starting with pregnancy and maternal health. Um, and I, I live in Georgia, Georgia has one of the highest rates of black female, um, mortality for people who are pregnant. Um, we also have high rates of black infant deaths. Um, after birth for no reason, I mean, like not, I shouldn't say for no reason because of racism, you know, and medical racism, uh, and, and so, you know, I've had really traumatic births, um, that I still am like finding myself triggered. Now and then when I'm, when I'm speaking to people, um, [00:43:00] and when, and I, and so I also have an autistic son, um, and he's three years old now and he's black. Alyssa Calder Hulme: The whole neurodivergent space is just full of white supremacy, like the, to the craziest degree, IQ testing, support systems, schooling systems. It's, oh my gosh,  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: huge. Absolutely. And so that's a thing. And one of the, like. One of the decisions that we had to make last year was whether or not to, um, enroll our son in ABA therapy, applied behavioral, what is it, analysis or something? I don't know. Um, there's all this controversy about ABA therapy. Um, I don't have a position on this controversy. All I know is that I need my son to be As little of a threat to white people as possible and that I saw and my husband saw ABA therapy as a way to help make that happen because he's already a threat. Um, so I have a [00:44:00] neurotypical son and a neurodivergent son and they're already threats because they're little black boys. Um, but if my autistic son. Is not showing up, um, as people are expecting him to, if he is being too quiet, if he's being too loud, if he has explosive tantrums, if he. I don't know looks if he stares off into space if he is not functioning how his teachers expect him to function or how the police expect him to function or any random person, then he's at risk. Yeah, he's at more risk than him.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Other people's children than white anyone, any other child, probably  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: exactly. And so, you know, for us, ABA therapy meant a way to help Royce, our son, um, [00:45:00] I don't want to say conform or assimilate, but how to manage his behavior and how to learn social skills so that. He can basically show up more of how people are expecting, you know, I mean, and that's just the fact of the matter, whether or not I think it should be the case that he should have to do that. All of that stuff doesn't matter because it is what it is. Um, and so to your question about like parenting and racial capitalism and black boys and all of that, like, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. There's no, there's nothing. Like there's nothing to make that sentence better. It's just terrifying.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Um, have you heard of, um, Trina Green Brown Parenting for Liberation? It's a book. No, I haven't. Um, so I was able to listen to a, a class that she gave, she's also a Black mother, um, [00:46:00] talking about racial trauma, raising children, and Working through her own stuff and trying to let her kids teach them survival skills, but also let them have like liberation and joy. And, um, that's a nonprofit in Southern California, um, that I think is just wonderful, but I I'm reading that book right now. And it's talks a lot about that. Um, and it's geared towards black parents. That's who it's for. Um, but I've been learning a lot through, through her stories there. And yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: It is. There's a lot that goes into. To black parenting because our parents were raised by parents who had children like disappearing with no explanation. I mean like, of course we still have that happening, but We, we were just raised by parents whose parents grew up [00:47:00] in the thick of it, like pre-Civil rights movement. And so what that means is that what our parents learned from their parents and have passed on to us are these ideas of like how survival, these ideas of survival. And that looks like. Staying in line like staying in our place, not acting out. And so, you know, in the legal profession, we see sometimes, um, families who are caught in, um, juvenile court proceedings because they discipline their Children in public. And for black families that might mean spanking, that might mean hitting people with a switch. Um, and while that's not something that I want to do, and frankly, most of the parents that I know that are my age, like, don't want to hit our kids.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: I don't think anyone wants to, but if you think it's going to keep them alive, like, just do it.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Right, exactly. And that's, that's the thing. It's like, so, I [00:48:00] love, you know, hearing about Parenting for Liberation because What I've learned, um, is that in order to keep our kids alive, we need to discipline them in a way to basically scare them from doing anything out of line. And that can mean using violence. My own parents did not, um, use violence, but my grandparents did use violence on us and then on, you know, on my parents. And so we're also left with like this, okay, so how do we, how do we navigate discipline if we don't want to like hit our children? Um. And so, yeah, I've got a lot to learn in that, in that respect, because I'm a cry it out person. I was like, I can't, and I'm somebody that, um, live with postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety in addition to this trauma. And so like really early on, it was clear to me that like, I just can't handle you. Like I want to hit you. So let me walk away and you go and [00:49:00] cry. Yeah. Um, because I can't do this. So my children are like the timeout kids and they'll go to your room and think about it, kids and like, leave mommy alone kids. Um, because like, I, you know, I have a lot to learn in that area for sure.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: It sounds like a lot of healing and creation and then there's the generational trauma, but then there's also generational healing. And I mean, I see that to agree with my kids or I'm just like passing it on. Like you'll do better than me. And I will do everything I can to set you up for a better life and I'm sorry, I'm doing my best.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah. Yeah. And just like letting our kids be has really been my husband and I both struggle with that because letting them be means that they might not be safe. Um, and balancing those, those two things. It's hard.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. I have, I have neurodivergent children as [00:50:00] well. And it compounds. My concerns for them.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Did you guys, um, utilize ABA?  Alyssa Calder Hulme: No, we don't have autistic children. Um, Okay, but I have a lot of friends that do we have a lot of other things that so we have ADHD. We have dyslexia we have dysgraphia, dyscalculia, anxiety, depression, I've wondered about autism, but we've never had that diagnosis so far, um, and I, and I originally was just so grateful to have an idea of what was going on and then unpacking, uh, how that diagnosis process comes across and how it's, um, implemented. And I was homeschooling my children at the time and the, the doctor's response to me as a homeschooling mother was just that it was me and that I was doing a bad job and just like. Wow. There's a lot of sexism in Utah, like it's a thing, but, and then going through the school [00:51:00] process and getting support and, and therapies and all kinds of things, um, it's heavy. It's a lot. And it's really under misunderstood. Certain things are like, I think ADHD is getting a little bit more understood, at least for white kids, white boys. Yeah. Um, but. I don't know. I think it's, I think it's an our generational thing that we're trying to heal and get better. At least those are the people I'm choosing to surround myself with. And it means a lot of parenting of our generation are doing it completely differently from the way we were raised. That's a lot of work. And it's a lot of unpacking. A lot of healing work. It is!  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: And like, I'm really curious, like, I look forward to hearing about what this is all going to look like when you go back to school. Because, like I'm first of all, I'm not like stay at home mom homeschool mom material like that is not me. I can't do it. I don't want to do it. They drive me crazy. [00:52:00] Um, but adding on this component of like neuro divergence and all that that means. Is a clusterfuck. I mean, it's like, absolutely expensive. Oh my gosh. So expensive. So, so, so expensive. Um, there's so much logistics that go into it. There's so much. I mean, like getting people to where they need to be, um, getting the, the therapies.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: And just trying to like learn your child and they're all different.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: They're like, all the children are different, which is like a trip to me still that like Everett is not the same as Royce and Royce is not the same as Everett. Um, yeah, it's, it's a lot.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. So, so we had to reschedule this a couple times because of me and I'm sorry. Um, but part of what's happening right now is we have a really hard time with transitions. lot [00:53:00] of people with autism do. Like we're all neurodivergent over here. It's really stressful. It's really hard. We're, we're getting our house ready to rent. We're finishing our basement right now and we're trying to do a lot of it ourselves. And then my kids just ended school. So we're starting summer. Um, I just ended my schooling. So I'm transitioning from being full time school to now full time stay at home mom again, which. is really hard for me because I, I did homeschool for four years and it was wonderful. And I was very done with it when I was done and, and basically like been working full time being in school and now I'm at home again. And then we're, you know, prepping to not only move, but to move across the country and going from rural Utah to suburban Chicago, uh, is going to be a drastic change. And yeah, we're leaving our doctors and our therapists and our friends and our support networks and our community here in. All of those changes are really big and like the kids that's that's the one Thing that has been the hardest with this move and with [00:54:00] me making my choice of what I want to do with my life and where I want to go to school and None of the other things really matter to me It's my kids that matter the most and it's been really challenging to make this decision I think it will be the best one in the end. Um, but yeah, it's it's a hard thing to manage all of that and I mean, I, I've been the primary caretaker of our children for their whole lives, 12 years now. And so I'm very aware of how this stuff affects them and the mental load and all that. So, uh, yeah, we'll see how, how much time I'll have to actually share and peel back all the layers here and talk about it. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah. I mean, it's. Yeah, but you guys can do it. And, and kids are resilient. Well, I feel like there's so much Royce, my autistic child. I just feel like it's so much more resilient than I ever was. Um, because he, and, and part of it's his [00:55:00] age is that he can learn. Yeah, he can. Adjust if he, if he needs to, but he also is so stubborn and just hold on to his himself, which is amazing. Um, he lets, you know, if he's not pleased,  Alyssa Calder Hulme: such a gift and such a challenge  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: it is.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. I think it'll be really good for our whole family, but especially my children to be in a more diverse environment. Um, we're homogenous place right now and. There's going to be a lot of really wonderful, wonderful, good things for them to explore and to learn and to create friendships and communities and, um, and bonds with other people that are, that look different from them, that have different beliefs, that, you know, all of those, those things that we've been talking about, that's something I really value. So it's more than just. It'll be a blessing to them. It's just harder to see that on this side of things, you know?  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah. Yeah. So how old is your oldest 12?  Alyssa Calder Hulme: She will be 12 in September. Yeah. So they're still all [00:56:00] elementary school. They'll be close by. We're going to, you know, be able to walk everywhere we need to go, which is really awesome. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: And it'll, it's just, it's a big change from what we're used to. It is.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Okay. Well, so much for being on the podcast. We've covered so much ground, Whitney. Thank you. Um, I really appreciate you. Explaining this and talking through it and delving into, to race and experience your experience as a black woman, I know that's work and effort and labor, and, um, I really appreciate it. I know our listeners do as well. And I know there are many listeners out there who are going to feel really seen because of what you said. Um, yeah, it's making me rethink the way that I approach that word and experiences and just really. Taking a step back and making sure I see more of the big picture and making sure that when I talk to people, I have space for for all of their responses and [00:57:00] experiences. So, so thank you for opening up and sharing with us today. I really appreciate it.  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's been a, it's been a pleasure.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: I always love to talk to other podcasters. It's so much fun. Yeah. To hear where they're coming from and what their passions are because we like to talk and we have passions. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Um, yeah. And so people, so the name of the podcast is Impostrix podcast and, um, we are on Spotify and Apple and Amazon. And people can find us at www. impostrixpodcast. com. And then on Instagram at Impostrix Podcasts are the two main, main places. Awesome.  Alyssa Calder Hulme: Okay. Anything else you want to share with us before we close? No,  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: I just I hope that, um, you know, these I want to say that these conversations are hard like conversations about race and understanding each other and where we're coming from and how our race impacts like our perspective on even things like ambition, um, can be [00:58:00] difficult to have and I encourage folks to, um, continue to try and push their boundaries around, um, the conversation, um, when it includes race, um, and to To To come. Somebody recently told me not to even assume the best, but just assume nothing like when you're having difficult conversations, whether or not it's about race or whether somebody is giving you critical feedback, um, assume nothing so that you can just hear the words. Um, and, and, you know, use that as a starting point. So that's my, yeah, that's my challenge for folks today is we're thinking about, like we talked about race, we talked about DEI work, we talked about racial capitalism and colonialism, and, um, these are topics that. Folks go through their, you know, normal day, week, month without talking about or thinking about. Um, so to the extent that it's uncomfortable, I encourage people to lean into that. Yeah. Thank  Alyssa Calder Hulme: you. I appreciate that. That's [00:59:00] our ambitious challenge. Stretch yourself. Stretch yourself into discomfort, especially if you are a white privileged person, especially. Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much, Whitney. I really, really  Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: appreciate it. Thank you.

How did the influential scholar Cedric Robinson understand black radicalism and global capitalism? Yousuf Al-Bulushi has written about what he sees as several constituent elements of the Robinsonian black radical tradition, including an appreciation of culture (which pushes back against Marxism's materialism) and a critique of state-based models of self-determination. Al-Bulushi also considers Robinson's engagement with world-systems analysis. (Encore presentation.) Yousuf Al-Bulushi, “Thinking Racial Capitalism and Black Radicalism from Africa: An Intellectual Geography of Cedric Robinson's World-System” Geoforum (pdf) (Image on main page by Doc Searls.) The post Cedric Robinson's World appeared first on KPFA.

In this episode we welcome César “che” Rodríguez to the podcast. We had a lengthy conversation about Rodríguez's piece, “‘Oscar Did Not Die in Vain' Revelous Citizen Journalism, Righteous/Riotous Work, and the Gains of the Oscar Grant Moment in Oakland, California,” which we will link in the show notes. César “che” Rodríguez works as a faculty member of Race & Resistance Studies at San Francisco State Univeristy, is a rank-and-file union member of the California Faculty Association, and organized with Change SSF.  As we got into discussion with che, we had some questions about his own relationships with Clyde Woods and Cedric Robinson and his use of certain methodological concepts. These questions led to in-depth discussion which offered so many insights into Cedric Robinson's concepts of racial capitalism and racial regimes, and Clyde Woods' concept of the blues epistemology and academic necrophilia. We decided to release that portion of the discussion as part one of the conversation. In particular che spends a good portion of this discussion laying out how he works with Robinson's concept of racial regimes dialectically, providing an example of how he uses tools from Cedric Robinson, Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall and others to offer a conjunctural analysis of racial capitalism in Oakland in the lead up to what he calls the Oscar Grant moment. And we get into che's concept of the hyphy corrido ché's concept linking Woods' blues epistemology with Robinson's mandate that ethnic studies scholars “record the noise.” In part two we will get into a more detailed discussion of the movement that came together and protagonized in the wake of the of state murder of Oscar Grant, including a detailed discussion of the citizen journalism, the organizing and rebellion, and some thoughts on what we should take away from the Oscar Grant moment for movements against police impunity and popular struggles more broadly. This is already our 6th episode of September, our 53rd of the year. We are currently 17 patrons away from hitting our goal for the month. That's ambitious, but if a few folks sign up for as little as $1 a month, it is still within reach. Become a patron here. We want to thank all the people who support the podcast through patreon and make the show possible. We also want to give a shout-out to folks who like and share the episodes on social media or write reviews of the podcast wherever they listen to it.  Links: “‘Oscar Did Not Die in Vain' Revelous Citizen Journalism, Righteous/Riotous Work, and the Gains of the Oscar Grant Moment in Oakland, California” (the article from the episode) Cedric J. Robinson - Critical Ethnic Studies Conference 2013

How did the influential scholar Cedric Robinson understand black radicalism and global capitalism? Yousuf Al-Bulushi has written about what he sees as several constituent elements of the Robinsonian black radical tradition, including an appreciation of culture (which pushes back against Marxism's materialism) and a critique of state-based models of self-determination. Al-Bulushi also considers Robinson's engagement with world-systems analysis. Yousuf Al-Bulushi, “Thinking Racial Capitalism and Black Radicalism from Africa: An Intellectual Geography of Cedric Robinson's World-System” Geoforum (pdf) (Image on main page by Doc Searls.) The post Cedric Robinson's World appeared first on KPFA.

With Ken OlendeMarxism 2023 is a festival of socialist ideas in London. It brings together meetings, speakers, debates, live music, a culture tent, film screenings, and more

Joshua Myers considers the work of thinkers who broke with the racial and colonial logic of academic disciplinarity and how the ideas of Black intellectuals created different ways of thinking and knowing in their pursuit of conceptual and epistemological freedom. Bookended by meditations with June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara, Of Black Study (Pluto Press, 2023) focuses on how W.E.B. Du Bois, Sylvia Wynter, Jacob Carruthers, and Cedric Robinson contributed to Black Studies approaches to knowledge production within and beyond Western structures of knowledge. Of Black Study is especially geared toward understanding the contemporary evolution of Black Studies in the neoliberal university and allows us to consider the stakes of intellectual freedom and the path toward a new world. Omari Averette-Phillips is a graduate student in the department of History at UC Davis. He can be reached at omariaverette@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Joshua Myers considers the work of thinkers who broke with the racial and colonial logic of academic disciplinarity and how the ideas of Black intellectuals created different ways of thinking and knowing in their pursuit of conceptual and epistemological freedom. Bookended by meditations with June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara, Of Black Study (Pluto Press, 2023) focuses on how W.E.B. Du Bois, Sylvia Wynter, Jacob Carruthers, and Cedric Robinson contributed to Black Studies approaches to knowledge production within and beyond Western structures of knowledge. Of Black Study is especially geared toward understanding the contemporary evolution of Black Studies in the neoliberal university and allows us to consider the stakes of intellectual freedom and the path toward a new world. Omari Averette-Phillips is a graduate student in the department of History at UC Davis. He can be reached at omariaverette@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Joshua Myers considers the work of thinkers who broke with the racial and colonial logic of academic disciplinarity and how the ideas of Black intellectuals created different ways of thinking and knowing in their pursuit of conceptual and epistemological freedom. Bookended by meditations with June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara, Of Black Study (Pluto Press, 2023) focuses on how W.E.B. Du Bois, Sylvia Wynter, Jacob Carruthers, and Cedric Robinson contributed to Black Studies approaches to knowledge production within and beyond Western structures of knowledge. Of Black Study is especially geared toward understanding the contemporary evolution of Black Studies in the neoliberal university and allows us to consider the stakes of intellectual freedom and the path toward a new world. Omari Averette-Phillips is a graduate student in the department of History at UC Davis. He can be reached at omariaverette@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Joshua Myers considers the work of thinkers who broke with the racial and colonial logic of academic disciplinarity and how the ideas of Black intellectuals created different ways of thinking and knowing in their pursuit of conceptual and epistemological freedom. Bookended by meditations with June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara, Of Black Study (Pluto Press, 2023) focuses on how W.E.B. Du Bois, Sylvia Wynter, Jacob Carruthers, and Cedric Robinson contributed to Black Studies approaches to knowledge production within and beyond Western structures of knowledge. Of Black Study is especially geared toward understanding the contemporary evolution of Black Studies in the neoliberal university and allows us to consider the stakes of intellectual freedom and the path toward a new world. Omari Averette-Phillips is a graduate student in the department of History at UC Davis. He can be reached at omariaverette@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Joshua Myers considers the work of thinkers who broke with the racial and colonial logic of academic disciplinarity and how the ideas of Black intellectuals created different ways of thinking and knowing in their pursuit of conceptual and epistemological freedom. Bookended by meditations with June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara, Of Black Study (Pluto Press, 2023) focuses on how W.E.B. Du Bois, Sylvia Wynter, Jacob Carruthers, and Cedric Robinson contributed to Black Studies approaches to knowledge production within and beyond Western structures of knowledge. Of Black Study is especially geared toward understanding the contemporary evolution of Black Studies in the neoliberal university and allows us to consider the stakes of intellectual freedom and the path toward a new world. Omari Averette-Phillips is a graduate student in the department of History at UC Davis. He can be reached at omariaverette@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historian and author Cedric Robinson defined the Black radical tradition as “the continuing development of a collective consciousness informed by the historical struggles for liberation.” The Black radical tradition is a rich and vibrant tapestry woven by the efforts of many Black people who raised their voices demanding freedom and equality denied to them by racial capitalism. They broke through white supremacy and forged the Black Radical Tradition. There were such giants as W. E. B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James, Frantz Fanon, and Malcolm X. And important cultural figures such as Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Paul Robeson, and Toni Morrison. Today, the legacy of these pioneers and many others inform and inspire Black movements for liberation and justice from Ferguson to Minneapolis to Memphis.

Nathan is joined by Joshua Myers, Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Howard University and author of Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition and  We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989, to talk about Cedric Robinson, racial capitalism, and how we cannot understand football without grappling with intertwined histories of racialization and capitalism.    The conversation explores Josh's brilliant essay in Catapult on his experiences in high school football as a prism for understanding how racial capitalism shapes and constrains those who participate in US football at the high school, college, and professional levels.   You can find Josh's essay in Catapult here.   For a transcription of this episode, please click here. (Updated semi-regularly Credit @punkademic) Research Assistance for The End of Sport provided by Abigail Bomba. __________________________________________________________________________ If you are interested, you can support the show via our Patreon! As always, please like, share, and rate us on your favorite podcast app, and give follow us on Twitter or Instagram. www.TheEndofSport.com    

This is the second half of our conversation with Joshua Myers on his latest book Of Black Study. In part one we covered Myers' goals for the project and the selection of thinkers he includes. We also reviewed in some detail his chapters on W.E.B. Du Bois and Sylvia Wynter, as well as his inclusion of June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara. In this part of the discussion we focus on the interventions of Jacob Carruthers and Cedric Robinson, who Myers often places in dialogue with one another. We talk about Carruthers work toward an African historiography, and around language and African Deep Thought, going into the terms mdw ntr and whm msw and talking a bit about their meaning and importance and conceptual relevance to the Black Radical Tradition and revolutionary possibility.  Because we have two other discussions with Myers on Cedric Robinson, both of which go more in-depth on Black Marxism and Robinson's interventions there, we focused this time on Myers work around Terms of Order and An Anthropology of Marxism. Myers closes with a reflection on the inability of the western university to accommodate radical thought in general, and Black radical thought in particular, except as a means to discipline and control it, leaving open questions of where Black Study must go from here.  We again want to thank Pluto Press for donating copies for our reading group of incarcerated folks which we support along with Massive Bookshop and Prisons Kill. This book comes out Friday on Pluto Press, so make sure to pre-order your copy or pick it up from your favorite radical bookstore.  Shout-out to all the folks who are patrons of our show and support the work we do bringing you conversations like this. You can join them and become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism  The discussion with Harold Cruse referenced in the episode. Our first interview with Joshua Myers (on Cedric Robinson) Our second interview with Joshua Myers (on his biography of Cedric Robinson) Our interviews with authors and editors of the Black Critique series     

This is part one of a two part conversation with Joshua Myers on his latest book Of Black Study.  In Of Black Study Joshua Myers examines the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, Sylvia Wynter, Jacob Carruthers and Cedric Robinson as well as June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara, and what each contributed to Black Studies approaches to knowledge production within and beyond Western structures of knowledge.  In this part of our two conversation on this book, Professor Myers talks about the selection of the six thinkers he centers the book around, and the type of project he is engaged in with the text. We also spend about an hour talking about two of the books chapters, the one centered around the interventions of W.E.B. Du Bois and Sylvia Wynter, as well as looking at each of their relationships to Marxist thought and analytical approaches, and their relationships to science, the humanities and academic disciplinary traditions. As well as what each of them finds among the Black masses and how what they finds there influences their work. Of Black Study is a new release from the Black Critique series on Pluto Press. This is our third conversation with Joshua Myers, both of our previous two have been discussions centered around Cedric Robinson. We have also done a number of discussions with authors and editors of the Black Critique series over the years, including discussions with Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, Bedour Alagraa, David Austin, and Michael Sawyer (links below). We strongly recommend this book, for anyone interested in Black Study and/or the critical interventions of the thinkers the book focuses on. It is an indispensable resource. it officially comes out later this week, but you can pre-order your copy now through Pluto Press or through our comrades over at Massive Bookshop. If you pre-order from Massive, 20% of the proceeds go to fund the abolitionist organization Project NIA. We've received word that Pluto Press will also be donating copies of this book to all the participants in the incarcerated study group that we support in partnership with Massive Bookshop and Prisons Kill. So we want to send a big shout-out to Pluto Press and Joshua Myers for that as well.  Part two - which focuses primarily on Myers' chapters on Jacob Carruthers and Cedric Robinson - will come out in the next couple of days.  As always if you like what we do, and want to support our ability to do it, you can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. We have a goal of adding 31 patrons this month and currently we're at 13, so we're still working towards that goal.  Our first interview with Joshua Myers (on Cedric Robinson) Our second interview with Joshua Myers (on his biography of Cedric Robinson) Greg Thomas's interview of Sylvia Wynter from Proud Flesh  From Cooperation to Black Operation (Transversal Texts conversation with Harney & Moten)  Bedour Alagraa's Interview with Sylvia Wynter “What Will Be The Cure?”  Our interviews with authors and editors of the Black Critique series  Beyond Prisons interviews with Dr. Anthony Monteiro (first interview, second interview)    

In this episode we welcome J. Moufawad-Paul back to the podcast. Previously we had him along with Alyson Escalante and Devin Zane Shaw to talk about On Necrocapitalism a collectively authored book they all worked on together along with some other authors. For today's episode we are focused on J. Moufawad-Paul's latest book Politics In Command: A Taxonomy of Economism. This book seeks to understand what economism is, how it is deployed through socialist analyses, and the ways in which various categories (economy, politics, class, practice, revolution, etc) are mobilized and classified according to its imaginary.  Today we talk about a range of topics related to this book, including what economism is, ways it manifests, and related issues like workerism, the concept of the labor aristocracy, and arguments around so-called identity politics. We also get into a little discussion around Marx's model of Capital, what Samir Amin called “actually existing capitalism” vs “imaginary capitalism,” and Cedric Robinson's idea of racial capitalism. And relatedly we talk about why class is not an identity, but rather as Moufawad-Paul puts it “class comes cloaked in the messiness of social relations.” Along the way JMP debunks some conspiratorial understandings of how capitalism works and how the ruling class reproduces itself. And we get into discussion of what Moufawad-Paul argues is the role of the vanguard party as an interventionist party that helps the working class understand itself as a combative class struggling for the overthrow of capitalism, rather than just fighting for immediate material gains in order to defend against the ravages of austerity. As we mention in the show, this book is available through Foreign Languages Press, we will include a link to that in the show notes, as well as to several of Moufawad-Paul's other books, writings and interventions. Happy New Year to those of you who live under a Gregorian calendar. We have a goal for January of adding 31 patrons to keep up with attrition and hopefully continue to build a little bit as well. Currently we are 23 patrons away from that goal. So it's a great time to sign up and support the show if you don't already. You can do that for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism Politics In Command: A Taxonomy of Economism by JMP JMP's Critique of Maoist Reason  J. Moufawad-Paul's piece on sovereignty that we reference in the episode  J. Moufawad-Paul's appearances on Revolutionary Left Radio  Some of J. Moufawad-Paul's books from Kersplebedeb  JMP's blog 

In this episode we welcome Robin DG Kelley back to the podcast. Robin DG Kelley is the Gary B. Nash professor of American History at UCLA. He is the author of seven books, and the editor or co-editor of even more.  For this episode, Kelley returns to the podcast to talk about the 20th Anniversary Edition of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination.  We talk to Kelley about what has been added to the new edition of the book, and discuss some of the ways that Freedom Dreams has been taken up during and in the wake of what Kelley terms “Black Spring” the protests following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others.  Kelley also talks a bit about the context in which Freedom Dreams was written and why he's restored a previously unreleased epilogue to the book.  Beyond that we ask several questions about the original text itself, drawing from the great reservoir of Black radical visions that continue to animate Freedom Dreams 20 years after its release.  Just a quick plug Robin is currently raising funds for Palestine Legal which is an independent organization dedicated to defending and advancing the civil rights and liberties of people in the US who speak out for Palestinian freedom. We'll include a link to that fundraiser in the show notes.  We'll also include a link to purchase the new 20th anniversary edition of Freedom Dreams from Massive Bookshop. Speaking of Massive our book club for incarcerated readers with Massive Bookshop and Prisons Kill was able to fund copies of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Scenes of Subjection to all 41 its participants, so thank you very much to all of you who supported that campaign! We will be announcing our December book soon so keep an eye out for that.  And we also hit our goal of adding 30 patrons for the month of November. Thank you to everyone who continues to support us. If you appreciate and enjoy conversations like this, become a patron of the show. You can do it for as little as $1 per month and be a part of the amazing group of folks who make this show possible.  Links/References: Purchase Freedom Dreams from Massive Bookshop Conjuncture: Against Pessimism (hosted by Jordan Camp) with Robin DG Kelley Robin & LisaGay's fundraiser for Palestine Legal. More on Palestine Legal Midnight On The Clock Of The World - (our first interview with Robin DG Kelley)

In this episode Annie and I discuss Cedric Robinson's Black Marxism. Its rise to prominence, the position it occupies within the academy and what are some critiques?   Annie Olaloku-Teriba is a PhD student based in London, working on legacies of empire and the complex histories of race. I.G. @TheGambian Twitter: @MomodouTaal @Annie_etc_

We're Joined by The Ministry Of African Propaganda to understand the Black Radical Tratition as well as the themes and concepts brought to us in Cedric Robinson's "Black Marxism - The Making Of A Black Radical Tradition" Ministry Of Afro Propaganda Linktree Patreon: Patreon.com/LumpenPodcast Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/LumpenS Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lumpen_Radio Discord: https://discord.gg/43AA3tt Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shibbysig/ Podbean:  https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detai... Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/revolutionary... Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/LateStageImperialism Twitch: Twitch.tv/RevolutionaryLumpenRadio Telegram: https://www.t.me/LateStage 

In this episode we are honored to welcome Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore to the podcast. Ruth Wilson Gilmore is Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences and Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Co-founder of many grassroots organizations including the California Prison Moratorium Project, Critical Resistance, and the Central California Environmental Justice Network, she is author of the prize-winning Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. In this episode, we ask questions primarily from Wilson Gilmore's latest book Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation. Along the way we talk about consciousness, conjunctural analysis, the horizon of abolition, and various modes of organizing against premature death. We also ask a couple of questions facing abolitionists today, and Ruth Wilson Gilmore offers some insights into the various forms of struggle in which she finds hope. We strongly encourage folks to pick up Abolition Geography which is packed full of insights from Ruth Wilson Gilmore's past 30 years of thinking and writing about abolitionist struggle, much of which she participated in directly.  Our music as always is provided by Televangel. We want to give a huge thank you to all of our patrons for supporting the show. Our work here is only possible because of your support. We don't sell ads, we don't put our episodes behind a paywall and we don't charge guests fees. We don't do any of those things because we don't want any corporate interests influencing our content, and we want all of our episodes to be freely available to anyone who wants to listen. So if you aren't already a patron, and you enjoy this conversation please become a patron of the show. You can do so for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

Settler Memory: The Disavowal of Indigeneity and the Politics of Race in the United States (University of North Carolina Press 2021) is about the displacement of Indigeneity in the discourse around race in American political theory, with settler memory being about recognizing or acknowledging the history of Indigenous peoples in colonialism, and then disavowing the active presence of settler colonialism and Indigenous politics in the present. Am and Kevin discuss how Black theorists, like James Baldwin, discuss Indigeneity in their politics, and how tensions can arise between different conceptions of land, history, and identity. Kevin's overall project is to link antiracism with anticolonialism, which shows through in the conversation.. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/173-kevin-bruyneel.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/173-kevin-bruyneel.html Resources: Settler Memory: The Disavowal of Indigeneity and the Politics of Race in the United States by Kevin Bruynee: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469665238/settler-memory/ Bacon's Rebellion: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/events-african-american-history/bacons-rebellion-1676/ W.E.B. Du Bois: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dubois/ James Baldwin: https://nmaahc.si.edu/james-baldwin The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty by Aileen Moreton-Robinson: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-white-possessive Layli Long Soldier: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/layli-long-soldier Dr. Kim TallBear: https://kimtallbear.com/ Cristina Sharpe: https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/cesharpe/ Cedric Robinson: https://globalsocialtheory.org/thinkers/robinson-cedric-j/ I Am Not Your Negro: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/i-am-not-your-negro/ Kyle Mays: https://www.kyle-mays.com/ Afro Pessimism: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-argument-of-afropessimism Frank Wilderson: https://www.frankbwildersoniii.com/about/ Leanne Betasamosake Simpson: https://www.leannesimpson.ca/ Robyn Maynard: https://robynmaynard.com/ Stuart Hall: https://globalsocialtheory.org/thinkers/hall-stuart/ Kēhaulani Kauanui: https://jkauanui.faculty.wesleyan.edu/ Jean M. O'Brien: https://shekonneechie.ca/biographies/jean-obrien/ Lee Maracle: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/lee-maracle-death-bc-indigenous-writer-poet-1.6245582 Jodi Byrd: https://as.cornell.edu/news/new-faculty-jodi-byrd Campuses and Colonialism: https://www.oah.org/insights/opportunities-for-historians/cfp-campuses-and-colonialism-symposium/ Malinda Maynor Lowery: http://history.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/lowery-malinda-maynor.html Stephen Kantrowitz: https://history.wisc.edu/people/kantrowitz-stephen/ Alyssa Mt. Pleasant: https://arts-sciences.buffalo.edu/africana-and-american-studies/faculty/faculty-directory/mt-pleasant.html

In this conversation we interview Steven Osuna to discuss his piece “Class Suicide: The Black Radical Tradition, Radical Scholarship, and the Neoliberal Turn” from the 2017 collection Futures of Black Radicalism. Steven Osuna is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at California State University, Long Beach. He is a scholar of racism and political economy; globalization, transnationalism, and immigration; and policing and criminalization. Steven was born and raised in Echo Park, Los Angeles and is a son of Mexican and Salvadoran working-class migrants. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Homies Unidos-Los Angeles and a member of the Philippines US Solidarity Organization (PUSO). In this episode Josh interviews Osuna, to discuss the role of the academic who sees their work as in solidarity with movements for the working class, anti-imperialist movements, and struggles for socialism and communism. Osuna talks about the concept of class suicide as put forth by Amilcar Cabral and additionally embodied in the theory and practice of figures like Frantz Fanon and Walter Rodney. Steven also talks about his own experiences as a student of Cedric Robinson. And Steven talks about Robinson's notion of the Black Radical Tradition alongside his own background and interest coming out of the Marxist tradition through learning about the El Salvadoran communist movement and also bringing an interest in liberation theology. Ultimately the conversation is concerned with how someone taking on a petty bourgeois position, and gaining access to the resources available in a place like a university can actually use that position and those resources in material solidarity with concrete working class struggles. Osuna does not mean this to be an abstraction, for him it means participating in working class, anti-imperialist movements and doing so by lending whatever labor those movements need rather than the position that might feel most comfortable to the petty bourgeois academic. Big shout-out to our new supporters on patreon and folks who have continued to support us. Our work is totally funded by our listeners and so we appreciate every dollar folks are able to give to keep this podcast going. If you would like to become a patron you can do so at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism at whatever you can afford, and your support makes this show possible.

On this episode of Convergences Adam from Acid Horizon is joined by Palestine Action activist and researcher Kieron Turner to discuss the work of Cedric Robinson and his landmark 1983 work Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. We're going to be covering Robinson's life and work, his dialectical analysis of the historical and ideological phenomenon of Racial Capitalism, his critique of Marxist Historiography, and the life and history of the Black Radical Tradition. Also discussed is Robinson's critique of the Eurocentric biases of certain Western Radicalisms, the critique of nationalist ideology, and his exposition of the Black Radical Tradition as the articulation of consciousness as a material force. That is, an emancipatory force of analysis, consciousness, and culture, as generated through the world historical experience and resistance of African peoples. Finally, we discuss the work of Palestine Action, which includes their ongoing campaign against the arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, which recently resulted in a weapons factory being shut down in Oldham, England. Kieron explains how Cedric Robinson's thought has impacted his own work in theory and praxis, and how Robinson's thought helps to orientate theory towards mass movements.Links:Palestine Action Website: https://www.palestineaction.org/Palestine Action Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pal_action The Institute of Race Relations Website: https://irr.org.uk/ Find Kieron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/decolonialcommiSupport Zer0 Books on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooksSubscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooksFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books-----Other links:Check out the projects of some of the new contributors to Zer0 Books:Acid HorizonPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/acidhorizonpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/acidhorizonMerch: crit-drip.comThe Horror VanguardApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horror-vanguard/id1445594437Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/horrorvanguardBuddies Without OrgansApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/my/podcast/buddies-without-organs/id1543289939Website: https://buddieswithout.org/Xenogothic: https://xenogothic.com/

Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work resonates deeply with contemporary movements such as Black Lives Matter. In Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition (Polity Press, 2021), the first major book to tell the story of Cedric Robinson, Joshua Myers shows how Robinson's work interrogated the foundations of Western political thought, modern capitalism, and the changing meanings of race. Tracing the course of Robinson's journey from his early days as an agitator in the 60s against the US's reactionary foreign policy to his publication of such seminal works within Black Studies as Black Marxism, Myers frames Robinson's mission as one that aimed to understand and practice resistance to "the terms of order." In so doing, Robinson excavated the Black radical tradition as a form of resistance that imagined that life on wholly different terms was possible. As the USA enters the 20s, the need to continue that resistance is as clear as ever, and Robinson's contribution only gains in importance. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to learn more about it. Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work resonates deeply with contemporary movements such as Black Lives Matter. In Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition (Polity Press, 2021), the first major book to tell the story of Cedric Robinson, Joshua Myers shows how Robinson's work interrogated the foundations of Western political thought, modern capitalism, and the changing meanings of race. Tracing the course of Robinson's journey from his early days as an agitator in the 60s against the US's reactionary foreign policy to his publication of such seminal works within Black Studies as Black Marxism, Myers frames Robinson's mission as one that aimed to understand and practice resistance to "the terms of order." In so doing, Robinson excavated the Black radical tradition as a form of resistance that imagined that life on wholly different terms was possible. As the USA enters the 20s, the need to continue that resistance is as clear as ever, and Robinson's contribution only gains in importance. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to learn more about it. Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work resonates deeply with contemporary movements such as Black Lives Matter. In Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition (Polity Press, 2021), the first major book to tell the story of Cedric Robinson, Joshua Myers shows how Robinson's work interrogated the foundations of Western political thought, modern capitalism, and the changing meanings of race. Tracing the course of Robinson's journey from his early days as an agitator in the 60s against the US's reactionary foreign policy to his publication of such seminal works within Black Studies as Black Marxism, Myers frames Robinson's mission as one that aimed to understand and practice resistance to "the terms of order." In so doing, Robinson excavated the Black radical tradition as a form of resistance that imagined that life on wholly different terms was possible. As the USA enters the 20s, the need to continue that resistance is as clear as ever, and Robinson's contribution only gains in importance. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to learn more about it. Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work resonates deeply with contemporary movements such as Black Lives Matter. In Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition (Polity Press, 2021), the first major book to tell the story of Cedric Robinson, Joshua Myers shows how Robinson's work interrogated the foundations of Western political thought, modern capitalism, and the changing meanings of race. Tracing the course of Robinson's journey from his early days as an agitator in the 60s against the US's reactionary foreign policy to his publication of such seminal works within Black Studies as Black Marxism, Myers frames Robinson's mission as one that aimed to understand and practice resistance to "the terms of order." In so doing, Robinson excavated the Black radical tradition as a form of resistance that imagined that life on wholly different terms was possible. As the USA enters the 20s, the need to continue that resistance is as clear as ever, and Robinson's contribution only gains in importance. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to learn more about it. Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work resonates deeply with contemporary movements such as Black Lives Matter. In Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition (Polity Press, 2021), the first major book to tell the story of Cedric Robinson, Joshua Myers shows how Robinson's work interrogated the foundations of Western political thought, modern capitalism, and the changing meanings of race. Tracing the course of Robinson's journey from his early days as an agitator in the 60s against the US's reactionary foreign policy to his publication of such seminal works within Black Studies as Black Marxism, Myers frames Robinson's mission as one that aimed to understand and practice resistance to "the terms of order." In so doing, Robinson excavated the Black radical tradition as a form of resistance that imagined that life on wholly different terms was possible. As the USA enters the 20s, the need to continue that resistance is as clear as ever, and Robinson's contribution only gains in importance. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to learn more about it. Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work resonates deeply with contemporary movements such as Black Lives Matter. In Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition (Polity Press, 2021), the first major book to tell the story of Cedric Robinson, Joshua Myers shows how Robinson's work interrogated the foundations of Western political thought, modern capitalism, and the changing meanings of race. Tracing the course of Robinson's journey from his early days as an agitator in the 60s against the US's reactionary foreign policy to his publication of such seminal works within Black Studies as Black Marxism, Myers frames Robinson's mission as one that aimed to understand and practice resistance to "the terms of order." In so doing, Robinson excavated the Black radical tradition as a form of resistance that imagined that life on wholly different terms was possible. As the USA enters the 20s, the need to continue that resistance is as clear as ever, and Robinson's contribution only gains in importance. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to learn more about it. Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work resonates deeply with contemporary movements such as Black Lives Matter. In Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition (Polity Press, 2021), the first major book to tell the story of Cedric Robinson, Joshua Myers shows how Robinson's work interrogated the foundations of Western political thought, modern capitalism, and the changing meanings of race. Tracing the course of Robinson's journey from his early days as an agitator in the 60s against the US's reactionary foreign policy to his publication of such seminal works within Black Studies as Black Marxism, Myers frames Robinson's mission as one that aimed to understand and practice resistance to "the terms of order." In so doing, Robinson excavated the Black radical tradition as a form of resistance that imagined that life on wholly different terms was possible. As the USA enters the 20s, the need to continue that resistance is as clear as ever, and Robinson's contribution only gains in importance. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to learn more about it. Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In this week's episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John tackle yet another movie about the Troubles, the 1990 film “Hidden Agenda.” This one, however, is more concerned with British politics than the well-being of the Irish people. They discuss Margaret Thatcher, talk a little about colonialism and the intra-European origins of racism, and complain about the dearth of well-made political thrillers. You can watch “Hidden Agenda” for free on Tubi.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieLinks from the episode!The New York Times for Wednesday November 21, 1990.Cedric Robinson's “Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition”Alan J. Pakula's 1974 film “The Parallax View.”

In this episode we interview Andrew J. Douglas and Jared A. Loggins to discuss their recently published book, Prophet of Discontent: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Critique of Racial Capitalism.  Andrew Douglas is a professor of political science and a faculty affiliate in Africana studies and international comparative labor studies at Morehouse College. Douglas is also the author of In the Spirit of Critique: Thinking Politically in the Dialectical Tradition and W.E.B. Du Bois and the Critique of Competitive Society.  Jared Loggins is a visiting assistant professor of Black Studies and political science at Amherst College We talk to Jared and Andrew about the mutually informing theoretical legacies of Martin Luther King Jr and Cedric Robinson. Loggins and Douglas share their insights on Robinson's theoretical work around racial capitalism, the Black Radical Tradition, and leadership and examine some of King's most potent radical critiques in dialogue with these concepts. We also ask about King's legacy as a dialectical thinker, and the authors share their insights on King's critiques around the materialistic nature of the capitalist system in dialogue with Marx's critique of commodity fetishism.  Douglas and Loggins also engage King's thinking around guaranteed basic income, the welfare state, and building and learning through communal struggle. They also explore King's thought around riots, the organized abandonment coinciding with deindustrialization, and the ways his thinking anticipates the neoliberal turn that comes after his assassination. Finally they share thoughts on King's anti-imperialism and their own thinking around rebuilding a Black radical counter public, and building the types of formations and institutions that can resist the patterns of capture and cooptation that continue to plague Black movements and Black thought in the 21st Century. You can read a free online copy of their book Prophet of Discontent: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Critique of Racial Capitalism or purchase a paperback copy. We'll include links to it in the show notes.  And it's a new year and we really need folks' continued support to sustain this podcast. So if you appreciate what we do, please chip into support our efforts here. You can become a patron for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. 

Lancashire Day....celebrating the joys and challenges of Lancashire life. Tributes to Morecambe Bay's Cedric Robinson and Strictly's AJ, Kai and Katya head for Blackburn

Matthew Bannister on Ian Wallace, one of the most influential figures in British ornithology. At one time he had seen a wider variety of species of birds than anyone else in Britain. Rossana Banti, the Italian partisan who risked her life acting as a courier for the Resistance. Ivy Nicholson, the model who was once a muse for Andy Warhol but fell on hard times and ended up sleeping on the streets. Cedric Robinson MBE, who guided people across the treacherous sands of Morecambe Bay for more than 50 years. Producer: Neil George Interviewed guest: Stephen Moss Interviewed guest: Roderick Bailey Interviewed guest: Bill Bewley Interviewed guest: Taryn Gould Interviewed guest: Sean Bolger Archive clips used: BBC Radio 4, 100 Years of British Birds 07/05/2007; The Sound Approach Podcast, Interview With Ian Wallace 2019; Progettazione Multimediale, Noi Partigiani - Interview With Rossana Banti 2021; Taryn Gould / Vimeo, As Is, As Was teaser 2014; Planet Group Entertainment, Factory People 2008; YouTube, Valarie Solanas on Shooting Andy Warhol 1968; BBC Radio 4, Midweek 09/12/2009; BBC Radio 4 Extra, Crossing the Bay 19/04/2019; BBC Radio 4, Saturday Live 16/07/2016.

11.19.2021 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: House voted mostly along party lines, but Biden's $1.75tn Build Back Better plan passes after months of negotiations for the legislation, which focuses on programs ranging from education to healthcare. Texas Representative Mark Veasey will join us to talk about today's vote and the bill's chances to pass the Senate. Not Guilty on all charges. After days of deliberations, Wisconsin jurors acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of shooting three people, killing two, at a Black Lives Matter protest in Wisconsin last year. In Georgia, a defense attorney for one of the three white men who chased and murdered Ahmaud Arbery asked for a plea deal before handing the case to the jury next week and called the rally of black pastors a "public lynching of the 21st century." We'll look at a new report that says premature births have increased for Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native women. Cedric Robinson was a political theorist, historian, and activist. We'll talk to author Dr.Joshua Myers who's book explains how Robinson's work questioned the foundations of western political thought, modern capitalism and changed the meaning of race. What can a community gain from the communal meal? We'll talk to an organizer of New Jersey's Give Thanks Community Meal to find out how organizers will use food to build communities among different peoples to effectively organize and create the world they want to leave for their children. And in our Education Matters segment, the CEO of the Harvard Diversity Project explains how the program promotes educational equity by creating opportunities for underserved youth. #RolandMartinUnfiltered partners: Verizon | Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, now available in 50+ cities, is the fastest 5G in the world.* That means that downloads that used to take minutes now take seconds.

In this episode we host Joshua Myers, to talk about his recently published book Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition. Folks will recall that last year we had a conversation with Josh Myers about Cedric Robinson much of which centered around the content and concepts within Black Marxism.  While there is a slight overlap between this conversation and that one, the two are quite distinct and mutually inform each other. So we invite folks to revisit that alongside this conversation, or to listen to both for the first time to get a more complete picture of Myers' extensive knowledge and analysis of Robinson's life and work. Beyond that of course we encourage folks to pick up this book as it really does a great job of grounding Robinson's intellectual work within the context of his life, organizing and relationships. In this conversation we talk more about young Cedric's developing anti-imperialist and anti-colonial consciousness. His disenchantment with the aims, strategies and tactics of the Civil Rights Movement. His critiques of leadership, and analysis of charisma, which set the ground for his first book The Terms of Order. And we discuss how Robinson's work has always aimed to assault the foundations of academic disciplines. We discuss the relationship between Robinson and CLR James, and the practices of study and development of undercommons spaces for colleagues and students. We also talk about the relationship between Cedric and Immanuel Wallerstein and Modern World Systems Theory.  We talk briefly about the arguments Robinson takes up in An Anthropology of Marxism and Forgeries of Memory and Meaning and of course we can't resist a couple of questions on recent readings, mis-readings, and non-readings of Robinson's most well-known work Black Marxism. We are only six patrons away from returning to 1,000 patrons, so if you have been waiting for that moment to become a patron of Millennials Are Killing Capitalism, it's a great time to join up and help sustain the work that we do here, bringing you conversations like this.

Additional Reading:David Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs (2018).Michael Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora (2005)Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness (1993).David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race (1994).Benjamin Quarles, Allies for Freedom and Blacks on John Brown (1974).Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism (1983).Lewis Gordon, Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization (2020).Manning Marable, W.E.B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat (2004).Host Suggestion:Randall Westbrook, Education and Empowerment: The Essential Writings of W.E.B. DuBois (2013).Almost all of W.E.B. Du Bois's writings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are in the public domain. Internet Archive offers access to these texts for free. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

提前计划了一年，又推迟了一年，涉及到病毒、种族、底层劳工移民等议题的展览“林从欣：猪仔叹和毒物赋”还是被2021年3月的现实迎头赶上了。在被疫情无限拉长的当下，艺术圈可能还在思考“做什么”或“怎么办”，而对全球的大多数人来说，问题就已经变成了“怎么活”。我们倾向于相信今天的算法系统，比19世纪的种植园经济有了很大的进步；我们也可能认为21世纪资本自由流动和新经济驱动的全球化，已经远离了殖民主义和帝国贸易对人和自然资源的压迫和掠夺。然而，决定历史书写的档案，却并不能告诉我们一切，未来的人们来整理留存在网络上的数据和资料的时候，也可能得出跟我们今天不同的结论。在去年4月录制的第二期“生滚粥”里面，向在荣谈到了其实是快递小哥和外卖骑手在维系着世界表面的繁盛，也谈到了后殖民经验与某些中国经验的水土不服。这一期，我们结合艺术家林从欣对殖民历史和帝国档案的关注，又邀请两位文学研究背景的年轻学者黄琨和康康，和她们聊聊什么是帝国档案。档案和文本的边界何在？艺术家研究和学术研究有何种交叉？白盒子为什么“白”又何以不“白”？ 当种族身份成为一种强化差异又可能抹除具体性的标签的时候，跨族裔、跨文化沟通的桥梁和空间又在哪里？嘉宾：黄琨，康奈尔大学比较文学博士生，研究近现代中国关于非洲与黑人的种族话语，研究兴趣包括种族批评理论、黑人研究 (Black Studies)、亚非连结、去帝国/去殖民的文艺与社会实践等。康康，作者、译者、艺术家，西北大学比较文学博士在读。2020以来试图在纽约和芝加哥的隔离中想象和创造共同生活的可能。主持人：蔡影茜剪辑、编辑：蔡俏凌、许琳斐片尾音乐：《Blackheart Breakables》 Otay:onii片头音乐：致谢Dim Sum production04:50 在向全球南方和被种族化的底层人民倾斜的灾难中，生活作为抗争有什么意义？05:35 骆里山的《四大洲的亲密关系》，如何串起欧洲自由主义兴起中四大洲的联系，发掘种族身份是如何在全球资本主义殖民体系下形成的09:40 萨义德以降帝国研究和批判的传统，后殖民话语体系的局限11:55 哈特曼提出的“批判性虚构”，赋予了阅读帝国档案的能动性，也给阅读者带来了伦理上的压力14:10 帝国档案真的能勾勒出它的书写者和被速写者的真实样貌和遭遇吗？帝国档案的边界在哪里？它的负空间是怎么形成的？18:50 林从欣与奥马尔·法斯特都曾经在唐人街做展览并引起讨论和争议，反士绅化运动的困境23:10 “香料（Spice）”从纽约唐人街搬到时代美术馆，其重新呈现考虑的因素24:22 什么是“白盒子”空间？“白盒子”的历史与悖论27:00 如何看待艺术家用物质和图像的方式诠释及反思历史？30:00 艺术创作和学术研究的交叉越来越普遍，但这种跨界也可能是某种等级、选择和准入门槛形塑的结果32:00与林从欣所在的美国西岸相比，中国艺术家能获得的研究支持非常有限，国内学术界对当代艺术也缺乏认识和兴趣35:30 单一国别的种族化历史的危险，林从欣的作品警醒我们注意殖民体系如何在不同的人之间制造不平等39:20 非普遍化的亚裔或者黄种人，达成新团结是有希望的方向，但当批判对象超出西方殖民和资本主义，这种亚裔内部的复杂多样很难被展开讨论42:09 我们的生物性被全方位纳入不断进行价值生产的经济体系里，我们不同程度地同意进入到这个体系里，对这些生物性非生物性面向进行买卖46:00 关注种族歧视当下的事件和历史时，也应该审视并批判自己的位置，警醒是否忽略了非模范少数族裔的亚裔，而不只是寻找自由主义这个稻草人本期节目提到的书籍和文章：1. 骆里山《四大洲的亲密关系》（Lisa Lowe, The Intimacies of Four Continents）2. 赛蒂亚·哈特曼《维纳斯双幕剧》（Saidiya Hartman, Venus in Two Acts）Link: https://www.timesmuseum.org/cn/journal/south-of-the-south/venus-in-two-acts 3. Achille Mbembe, Criticque of Black Reason黑色读书会书单：1. Cedric Robinson, The Making of the Black Radical Tradition2. Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations3. Mariama Ba, So Long a Letter (Une si longue lettre)4. Saidiya V. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection5. Lisa Lowe, The Intimacies of Four Continents6. Rahul Rao, Third World Protest: Between Home and the World7. Adom Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire8. Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider9. Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Decolonization, Development and Knowledge in Africa10 Ufrieda Ho, Paper Sons and Daughters: Growing up Chinese in South Africa

This episode is dedicated to the memory and power of the victims of white domestic terrorism in Atlanta, the survivors and their families as well as the victims and survivors of all forms of sinophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-sex work and anti-Asian xenophobia/ US imperialist violence against Asian bodies happening all around the globe. If you would like to join us in a moment of silence, fast forward to the 1:54:28. This episode is also dedicated to Stacey Park Milbern, one of the creators of the disability justice movement. We also dedicate this episode to the Seattle Massage Parlor Outreach Project (MPOP). The transcript at 1:55:00 is from a livestream of a community vigil held in the victims' honor and in solidarity with Black and Indigenous sovereignty. Cash App: $mpopsea, Venmo: MPOP_SEA Recommended Reading: -Resisting State Violence by Dr. Joy James (Ericka reads an excerpt from that book in this episode) -Black Marxism by Cedric J. Robinson -Some Reasons For Chinese Exclusion: Meat v Rice, American Manhood Against Asiatic Coolieism (Author Unknown) -Essay on Japanese American Beauty Pageants and Minstrel Shows during political imprisonment by the FDR administration during WWII by Malia McAndrews: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/536560/summary -Search for articles on the history behind yellow peril movement, Richard Aoki, FBI Informant who joined Black Panther Party in the 60s -Note on Marxism: Engels' father owned a factory and Marx was white and didn’t understand that capitalism is always racialized like Cedric Robinson and Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore talk about - check the book out if you want, there are some goods in Marx’s Capital Illustrated by David Smith -Lisa Simpson and Samaria Rice Official Statement: https://www.wearyourvoicemag.com/official-statement-from-samaria-rice-mother-of-tamir-rice-lisa-simpson-mother-of-richard-risher-and-the-collective/ How to Support Samaria and Lisa: Cashapp-$SamariaRice Cashapp: $lisalee693 Support Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC) Seattle Massage Parlor Outreach Project (MPOP) List of Black Owned Bookstores: https://nonamebooks.com/Bookstores Zora's Daughters Podcast: https://zorasdaughters.com/ Music by Benjamin Earl Turner-Apathy Happy Editors Note: Both Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel wore Blackface

Before Huey Newton and Bobby Seale started the Black Panther Party, they spent years learning from the leaders of the Afro-American Association. During the early 1960s, when the struggle for racial justice was evolving from a civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the rise of Black Power, the Afro-American Association brought leaders like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali to the East Bay for public conversations about philosophy, religion, economics, politics, and more. Members and close associates of this organization, such as Ron Dellums, Judge Thelton Henderson, and Cedric Robinson, went on to become some of the most influential cultural and political Black leaders of their generation. Kamala Harris’ parents even met at one of these gatherings. This episode explores the mostly forgotten* legacy of the Afro-American Association and its leader, Donald Warden (who later changed his name to Khalid Abdullah Tariq al Mansour), through interviews with four former members – Anne Williams, Margot Dashiell, and brothers Loye and Lee Cherry – as well as Oakland History Center head librarian Dorothy Lazard. Listen now to hear about this group’s origins on the campus of UC Berkeley, their “Mind of the Ghetto” conferences in West Oakland, and much more. To see photos related to this episode, check out: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/were-no-longer-afraid-to-be-black/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

As the literary scholar and a regular contributor to the site, Bhakti Shringarpure, https://africasacountry.com/2020/12/notes-on-fake-decolonization (recently wrote on Africa Is a Country), “Decolonization has taken over our social media timelines with a vengeance. With hundreds of thousands of ‘decolonize' hashtags, several articles, op-eds, and surveys on the subject—and plenty of Twitter fighting over the term—one thing is clear: decolonization is all kinds of trendy these days. So, we are naturally forced to ask: What counts as ‘authentic' decolonization in 2020?” For some, decolonization, and its attendant concepts like “decoloniality,” have become something of an empty signifier, too much of a catch-all to meaningfully refer to anything. For others, it raises a complaint still worth addressing: that knowledge production, across universities, media and culture, remains built on a foundation that marginalizes non-Western sources of knowledge. These debates often proceed as non-starters because there is very little precision over what exactly is being debated. Beyond the terms in use (which is what typically clouds things), there is a need to ask what is decolonization for? For all of its supposed weaknesses as a theory and practice, what need must it be addressing for it to demonstrate such resilience in spite of those weaknesses? This week on AIAC Talk we are exploring two scholars and activists whose body of work, though once marginal, are beginning to grow in prominence as these questions become more pressing. With Bongani Nyoka and Joshua Myers, we will discuss the social and political thought of Archie Mafeje and Cedric Robinson. In his seminal text, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, Robinson posits the group of black intellectuals challenging Marxism at the height of anticolonial consciousness as forming a distinct, political tradition, one whose critiques constituted “the continuing development of a collective consciousness informed by the historical struggles for liberation and motivated by the shared sense of obligation to preserve the collective being, the ontological totality.” What should we make of figures like Mafeje and Robinson, and the range of concerns they championed, which, although they did not use the term, could be read as a project to decolonize classical left-wing theory? What informs their resurgence today, and is it a project that in its assertion of an African cultural heritage, eschews the universal? Or, should we take our cue from Mafeje, who in his defense of Africanization in the essay “Africanity: A Combative Ideology” argued that “‘if what we say and do has relevance for our humanity, its international relevance is guaranteed.” https://www.ru.ac.za/politicalinternationalstudies/people/academic/bonganinyoka/ (Dr. Bongani Nyoka) is a Lecturer in the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes University, and is the author of two books on Mafeje: Archie Mafeje: Voices of Liberation (HSRC Press, 2019) and The Social and Political Thought of Archie Mafeje (Wits University Press, 2020). Joshua Myers is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies in the http://coas.howard.edu/afroamerican/ (Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University). He is the author of https://nyupress.org/9781479811755/we-are-worth-fighting-for/ (We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989) as well as a new biography of Cedric Robinson, which is called Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition, forthcoming with Polity Books.

An intellectual product of the Black Radical Tradition, ‘racial capitalism' was first expansively developed as an account of the historical origins and embedded logics of global capitalism by Cedric Robinson in his key text Black Marxism. This session introduces students to the idea of racial capitalism and explains how it helps us to understand the centrality of race to the formation of capitalism. We will also consider how racial capitalism helps us to remain attuned to the constant production and reproduction of difference; and the exploitation and expropriation of those who are differentiated as ‘inferior'. But, perhaps most importantly, we'll also cover how racial capitalism asks us to pay attention to those who should be more celebrated as key revolutionary subjects of history – the enslaved, the maroons, anticolonial plantation workers, migrant workers, and others who may not fit the frame of the ideal working class figure, but who have done so much to deliver rights and justice globally. Readings Robinson, C. J. (2000). Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. University of North Carolina Press. Bhattacharyya, G. (2018). Rethinking Racial Capitalism: Questions of Reproduction and Survival. Rowman & Littlefield. Kelley, R. D. (2017). What did Cedric Robinson mean by racial capitalism? Boston Review, 12. Gilmore, R. W. (2020) Geographies of Racial Capitalism. Antipode Online Gilmore, W. R. (forthcoming 2021). Change Everything: Racial Capitalism and the Case for Abolition. Haymarket Books. Resources Racial Capitalism – Global Social Theory Pulido, L. (2016). Flint, Environmental Racism, and Racial Capitalism. Capitalism Nature Socialism. Hudson, P. J. (2017). Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean. University of Chicago Press. Questions for Discussion How does broadening the focus from the European proletarian experience to the organising and revolts of the unfree labourers of the (formely) colonised world cause us to revise dominant understandings of historical change? How does racial capitalism help us to understand the complex relationship between inclusion and exclusion? What, according to Cedric Robinson, are the roots of the Black Radical Tradition? In what ways are racial and nationalist interests mobilised by elites against collective class interests?

Image: Pauulu Kamarakafego As we have explored in previous programs, in fact, as we have attempted to unpack in every program, Black internationalism is an intentional disruption; a radical intervention in the global terms of order [nod to Cedric Robinson]. In order to understand Black internationalism as a critical disruption, a radical intervention, we must unpack it. The concept, international, as understood in dominant discourse [opposed to discourse on the periphery, discourses from below] is related to the creation and forced imposition of the nation-state, birthed from a European historiography/historicity as the dominant mechanism that organizes human life. The imposition of mechanisms, such as colonialism and chattel slavery, for instance, rooted in a specific epistemology was necessary to structure institutions and forms of knowledge that [re]conceptualized what it means to be human as the justification for and maintenance of the idea private property. Being so, international indicates a relationship at various levels of communities of people across [artificial] boundaries. It is from here, Black international/ism, then, is understood as a radical disruption of these systems and institutions. What must not be lost in this praxis, is the fact that this radical disruption is simultaneously a clear articulation and theorization of Black Power. Cedric Robinson asserts that “[Physically and ideologically, and for rather unique historical reasons, African peoples bridge the decline of one world order and the eruption (we may surmise) of another. It is a frightful and uncertain space of being.] If we are to survive, we must take nothing which is dead and choose wisely among the dying. [The industrial nations are self-destructing. Others, too, of course, will be affected]” [Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition [1983]), 316]. This assertion is certainly true on many levels but requires a simultaneously developed alternative foundation to build upon, as the wise choices must be planted into something. Today, we explore the ideas and argument in, Pauulu's Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice as presented by Quito Swan. Properly situated, we can see Pauulu's Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice presents a framework for that alternative. The possibilities of inventing the future. Pauulu's Diaspora is a mapping of Black internationalism across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean worlds, through the life and work of twentieth-century radical Pauulu [Powlu] Kamara-kafego. In this work, Dr. Quito Swan is disrupting and challenging limited conceptualizations and understandings of Black Power by situating it, properly, in an international context. Dr. Swan offers us a map on how Pauulu was following in the long tradition of those who came before. A genealogy of Black internationalism's praxis of resistance. Quito Swan is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he directs the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture. He is a historian of Black internationalism, global Black Power and the Black Pacific. Dr. Swan is the author of many articles as well as, The Struggle for Decolonization: Black Power in Bermuda. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native, indigenous, African, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people. Enjoy the program!

[Program produced and aired 2016] Image: Frontispiece to Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble….1829 Maroon derives from Spanish cimarrón. Cimarrón originally referred to domestic cattle that had taken to the hills in Hispaniola. It was gradually expanded to be applied to enslaved Indigenous peoples who escaped from the Spaniards as they colonized South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. By the end of the 1530s, the concept had taken on strong connotations of being "fierce," "wild" and "unbroken," and was transferred to be primarily applied to Africans and people of African descent---or the runaways as they were referred to. For more than four centuries, the communities formed by escaped enslaved peoples dotted the fringes of plantations throughout the Americas, from Brazil to southeastern United States, from Peru to the American Southwest. Known variously as quilombos, mocambos, or mambeses, these new societies ranged from tiny bands that survived less than a year to powerful states the numbered thousands of members who survived for generations and even centuries. Maroon communities consisted of escaped African/a peoples with origins from a wide range of societies in West and Central Africa...Their collective task was to create new communities and institutions, through various processes of integrating cultural elements drawn largely from a variety of African societies [never forget, home was their destination]. Kwame Gyekye work on the deep continuities of cultural elements that link African societies is important to note here. For generations, historians believed that even the most remarkable of maroon settlements in the North America did not rival the achievements of maroon communities in South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. However, according to a number of scholars such as Cedric Robinson; Gerald Mullin, as well as Hebert Aptheker, and most recently Sylviane A. Diouf, evidence of the existence of at least fifty such communities in various places and at various times, from 1672 to 1864, has been documented. Herbert Aptheker's points out that the 1st maroon communities pre-dated Jamestown settlements by 82 years. They were African insurrectionists who secured gained their freedom from abortive Spanish colonizing efforts in North and South Carolina. Maroon communities were a real presence in the U.S…as Aptheker documented their 19th century presence in VA; Georgia; Alabama; Louisiana; South Carolina as well as in Wake, Gates, Onslow, Bladen, Sampson, Jones, New Hanover, Dublin, Wilmington, Robeson, Nash counties, North Carolina. Today, will listen to a conversation I had with Dr. Nubia Kia where we discussed her recent historical novel, titled I spread my Wings and I Fly. Dr. Kia is a cultural worker, artist, activist, scholar, retired professor from Howard University. Her work has been published in Black Scholar, Black American Literature Forum, and Journal of the African Literature Association. As historian and poet, Dr. Kai has also won numerous honors, which include the Michigan Council Arts Awards, D.C. Commission of the Arts Awards, and National Endowment for the Arts Awards, just to name a few. Her work is an important meditation and contribution on previous and current work that is being done to explore the connections between culture, resistance, the science of metaphysics [spiritwork] as a source liberatory practice as a historical and cultural product of the Maroons. All of which were cultivated within conditions that African peoples were thrust into. This process and its elements are found within every corner of African Diasporic sociopolitical thought and cultural practices from Brazil, to Colombia, to the Black Church to hip hop. Africa as more than a geographical landmass, lives. It lives in the mind, bodies, spirits, intelligence of African/a peoples. Enjoy the program

The inferno rages on as the re:verb team takes on more “hot texts” - arguments and opinions with questionable premises - that have emerged in the wake of the 2020 election. In this episode, we continue to examine the backlash against movements to “defund the police” via some anti-abolitionist rhetoric from the comedy podcast Chapo Trap House, which ironically echoes the Obama critique we discussed on our last show. In responding to CTH's critiques of abolitionism, we touch on why it's better to stay connected with organizers in your own community than Brooklyn podcasters making 6-figure salaries.Then, Sophie leads us through a Washington Post article that tries to “have its cake and eat it, too” on the issue of whether or not Joe Biden's White House communications team will be “more female” than Donald Trump's. The team discusses the nuances of representation in politics, offering a critique of “bean-counting” feminism that reproduces the logics of Trumpist rhetoric (“we have the most women - folks, you've never seen so many women!”). Finally, Ben brings us a hack-job of pseudo-conspiracy from the pages of The Federalist. In this article, the “voice of (Tristan) Justice” brings forth the very novel and not-tired argument that regardless of whether there was actual voter fraud in the 2020 Election, it was still an unfair contest because of (*drumroll please*) ~liberal media bias~.We hope that our re:sponses to these hot texts provide you with a bit of catharsis coming out of a very anxiety-inducing election cycle. We (like you) can't wait for the 2024 election cycle to begin on January 21, 2021, and look forward to the hot texts that will inevitably emerge from it!Works and Concepts Cited in this Episode:Berger, D., Kaba, M., & Stein, D. (2017, 29 August). What abolitionists do. Jacobin Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/prison-abolition-reform-mass-incarcerationKelley, R. D. G. (2017). What did Cedric Robinson mean by racial capitalism?. Boston Review, 12.Robinson, C. J. (2000). Black Marxism: The making of the Black radical tradition. Univ of North Carolina Press. [Original articulation of “racial capitalism”]Kaba, M. (2020, 12 June). Yes, we mean literally abolish the police: Because reform won't happen. The New York Times. Retrieved from: nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.htmlGilmore, R. W. & Kilgore, J. (2019, 19 June). The case for abolition. The Marshall Project. Retrieved from: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/06/19/the-case-for-abolition

We talk about Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson and play through Metal Wolf Chaos XD

Image: Fannie Lou Hamer & Ella Baker, Aug. 6, 1964 [https://snccdigital.org/events/mfdp-holds-state-convention/] Knowledge is the intentional organization of information to meet an expressed objective and/or objectives. If this is, indeed, a viable conceptualization of knowledge, then the ability to correctly analysis the conditions within which a people find themselves must operate as praxis, consistently and constantly. As stated before, European modernity rooted in the intellectual and material construction of a global order as founded in the creation of whiteness, supported by the culture of racial capitalism is rupturing. In reaction, this whiteness, as an organizing construct is attempting to hold its position of authority. While the U.S. is currently in the middle of what to some is a peculiar national election cycle, to others, that critical thinking and radical vibrating other, this period is only peculiar in that we are once again in a cyclical discourse around voting in a settler nation that was organized on genocide; forced labor; systemic and institutionalized race/ism; and continuous imperial engagement with the world. In order to maintain one's sanity living in such contradiction, one can only think with those who provide sharp and penetrating clarity when analyzing the discourses of the moment. “It isn't revolutionary or materialist to disconnect things. To disconnect revolutionary consciousness from revolutionizing activity, to build consciousness with political agitation and educational issue-making alone is idealistic rather than materialist....” (George Jackson, Blood in My Eye, 1972: 26-27). Thinking through the binary, the either/or category of thought that limits our capacities for strategic praxis in Western capitalist democracies, we see how the dialectical processes operate throughout the Africana world to create contradictions [and opportunity]. For example, Senegalese political economist Ndongo Samba Sylla (2013), echoing the scholarship of Samir Amin (2004) in The Liberal Virus, demystifies the celebratory language of ‘free and transparent' elections for ‘liberal democracies' in Africa as fictitious systems that benefit the economic elite in-so-much as they create an impression (rather than a reality) of an emancipated collective.” (A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics, and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, 2018: 130-131; Sylla, 2013). Said all this to say, we are at a juncture. An unavoidable fracture that is weaved into the sociopolitical and cultural fabric of the nation-state. The conflicts inherent in political discourse, that is the competing narratives between the political activity of the collective and the political act of the individual are a manufactured reality in a capitalist democracy. Cedric Robinson provides more clarity for us on this arguing: “capitalist democracy” is one of the most powerful and enduring metanarratives of modern Western historiography. As an ideological formation it has inscribed discursive domains as distinctive as politics and science…As icon, its aura hovers over our institutions of knowledge and power, permeating inquiry and decision making with the counterfeit certainties of predestination” (Cedric Robinson, Oliver Cromwell Cox and the Historiography of the West: 7). So, what is to be done? How do we make sense of all this? Today…: of elections and beyond, thinking through the Crisis in Western Hegemony. I recently sat down with Corey Walker, Professor of the Humanities at Wake Forest University. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

On episode 091 of the Quarantine Tapes, Paul Holdengräber is joined by Robin Kelley. As a historian, Robin provides a long view of the ongoing crises in the US, talking with Paul about how to slow down in this moment and the importance of keeping the big picture in mind. They talk in-depth about issues of racial capitalism, environmental justice, and a culture of care.In their discussion, Paul and Robin call out influences like Thelonious Monk and Cedric Robinson and take time to hear about the three words that guide Robin’s approach to his work: love, study, struggle.Robin D. G. Kelley is the Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA. His books include, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (2009); Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (2012); Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (2002); and Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (1990).

The Abolition Suite is a series of AirGo episodes exploring the concepts and practices of policing and prison abolition with the thought leaders who have been pushing an abolitionist future forward for decades. The Abolitionist Suite is presented in support of the #DefundCPD campaign and the Black Abolitionist Network. This episode's guest is scholar, author, and historian Robin D.G. Kelley. A true digger and chronicler of Black liberation history, he explores the roots and routes of abolition, defines the concept of racial capitalism, and even takes off his historian hat briefly to imagine a liberatory future. NOTE: Don't forget to rate, comment, and review AirGo on Apple Podcasts! Show Notes: Angela Davis Lectures on Liberation: https://archive.org/details/AngelaDavis-LecturesOnLiberation Slavery and Social Death by Orlando Patterson: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674986909 Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson: https://uncpress.org/book/9780807848296/black-marxism/ Black Reconstruction by Du Bois: https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/black-reconstruction-america/ Organization for Black Struggle in STL: https://www.obs-stl.org/ Jamala Rogers: http://jamalarogers.com/about/ Black Radical Congress Agenda: https://www.obs-stl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Black-Radical-Congress-FREEDOM-AGENDA.pdf M4BL Policy Statement: https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/ Critical Resistance: http://criticalresistance.org/ CLR James: https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/biograph.htm How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2785-how-europe-underdeveloped-africa How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America by Manning Marable: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/736-how-capitalism-underdeveloped-black-america Groundings with my Brothers by Walter Rodney: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2787-the-groundings-with-my-brothers Jah Kingdom by Monique A. Bedasse: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469633596/jah-kingdom/ Gina Dent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Dent Combahee River Collective: https://combaheerivercollective.weebly.com/the-combahee-river-collective-statement.html Recorded 7/13/20 Music from this week's show: Song 33 - Noname

Joshua M. Myers is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Howard University. He is the author of We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989, which came out in 2019 on NYU Press. He is also the editor of A Gathering Together: Literary Journal. Among his current projects, the book Cedric Robinson: Black Radicalism Beyond The Order of Time.  In this episode, Myers gives a brief biography of Cedric Robinson’s early life and discusses the key contributions of Black Marxism: The Making of The Black Radical Tradition. We discuss the Black Radical Tradition and racial capitalism in tension and dialogue with modes of radicalism that emanated from Europe. Along the way Myers debunks several common misreadings of Robinson’s work, and urges readers to engage Black Marxism within and along with the whole body of Robinson’s writing as well as the rich tradition of Black Radical thought. 

In this episode, our host, Cierra Kaler-Jones, an Education Anew Fellow with Teaching for Change through Communities for Just Schools Fund, interviews historian Robin D.G. Kelley to demystify the taboos and stereotypes about communism in the decades leading up to the modern Civil Rights Movement. Kelley proceeds to tell stories about Anne Braden, Lemon Johnson, Claudia Jones, Mildred McAdory, Estelle Milner, Cedric Robinson, the Scottsboro Nine, the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, and more. Music from Rose City Kings from Free Music Archive.

[Note: Produced and aired in 2017] For more than four centuries, the communities formed by such escaped enslaved peoples dotted the fringes of plantations in the Americas, from Brazil to southeastern United States, from Peru to the American Southwest. Known variously as quilombos, mocambos, or mambeses, these new societies ranged from tiny bands that survived less than a year to powerful states encompassing thousands of members that survived for generations and even centuries. Their descendants still form semi-independent enclaves in several parts of the hemisphere -for example, in Suriname, French Guiana, Jamaica, Colombia and Belize. For generations, historians believed that even the most remarkable of maroon settlements in the North America did not rival the achievements of maroon communities in South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. Nevertheless, according to a number of scholars such as Cedric Robinson, Gerald Mullin as well as Herbert Aptheker evidence of the existence of at least fifty such communities in various places and at various times, from 1672 to 1864, has been found. Taken further back, Herbert Aptheker's work shows us that the 1st maroon communities pre-dated Jamestown settlements by 82 years. They were slave insurrectionists from abortive Spanish colonizing efforts in North and South Carolina. With this……We will listen to part of a discussion between famed independent filmmaker, activist, scholar Haile Gerima and Dr. Akinyele Umjoa where they discussed maroons and Dr. Umjoa's book, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement… Haile Gerima is an independent filmmaker and professor of film at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Born and raised in Ethiopia, Gerima immigrated to the United States in 1967. After the award-winning Ashes & Embers (1982) and the documentaries Wilmington 10—U.S.A 10,000 (1978) and After Winter: Sterling Brown (1985), Gerima filmed his epic, Sankofa (1993). Gerima continues to distribute and promote his own films, including his most recent, Teza, which won the Jury and Best Screenplay awards at the Venice Film Festival in 2008. He also lectures and conducts workshops in alternative screenwriting and directing both within the U.S. and internationally. Dr. Akinyele Umjoa is a scholar-activist, who currently serves as the Chair of the Department of African-American Studies at Georgia State University (GSU). Dr. Umoja's writing has been featured in scholarly publications such as The Journal of Black Studies, Black Scholar, Radical History Review and Socialism and Democracy. And a number of edited volumes. He is also author of We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement. We then turn our attention to the theory and practice of the Black church. I sat down with Dr. Torin Alexander, where we explored the deep epistemological and ontological underpinnings of the black church. Paying attention to the differentiation of the Black church as an institutional-physical space and incubator of liberatory practice. Dr. Alexander is a scholar of African American religion and religious experience. His interdisciplinary research and teaching are influenced by phenomenology, critical theories on race and gender, and post-colonial/post-structuralist studies. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program….

This week on The Magnificast, Matt and Dean talk with Amaryah Shaye Armstrong about her new piece in The Bias (read it here: https://christiansocialism.com/cedric-robinson-racial-order-christianity-socialism/). In this episode, Amaryah helps us apply Cedric Robinson's ideas regarding racial capitalism and order to our current moment with regards to the Black Lives Matter protests. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Support The Magnificast on Patreon* http://patreon.com/themagnificast *Get Magnificast Merch* https://www.redbubble.com/people/themagnificast/

In this episode, edna bonhomme interviews Hiba Ali and they discuss COVID-19, multimedia performance art, surveillance, global shipping, Amazon, and modes of healing. Hiba Ali is a digital artist, educator, scholar, DJ, experimental music producer and curator based across Chicago, IL, Austin, TX, and Toronto, ON. Her performances and videos concern surveillance, womxn of colour, and labour. She conducts reading groups addressing digital media and workshops with open-source technology. She is a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at Queens University, Kingston, Canada. She has presented her work in Chicago, Stockholm, Toronto, New York, Istanbul, São Paulo, Detroit, Dubai, Austin, Vancouver, and Portland. She has written for THE SEEN Magazine, Newcity Chicago, Art Dubai, The State, VAM Magazine, ZORA: Medium, RTV Magazine, and Topical Cream Magazine. Image, A still from we are living: workers liberation as environmental justice, YouTube 360 Video, 2020 Bibliography Simone White, Of Being Dispersed Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women and Queer Radicals, Saidiya Hartman River of Fire, Qurratulain Hyder NTS: Nkisis (https://www.nts.live/shows/nkisi) and Fauzia (https://www.nts.live/shows/fauzia) Decolonization is not a Metaphor, Tuck & Yang Hito Steyerl, Duty-Free Art Artists: Saskia Sassen, Mariame Kaba, Simone Browne, Ruha Benjamin, Lisa Nakamura, Cedric Robinson, Lisa Nakamure, Lisa Parks, Saidiya Hartman, Diamond Stingily, Tabitha Rezaire, Sondra Perry, Nina Sarrelle, Joelle Mecedes,cAmina Ross, Liz Mputu, Hito Steyerl, Mika Rottenburg, Black Audio Film Collective, Otolith Group, John Akomfrah, Carrie Mae Weems Detroit Digital Justice Coaliton: http://detroitdjc.org/ Mandy Harris Williams Reading Group - Algorithms of Oppression Reading Group, Women Center for Creative Work: https://www.feminist.ai/aoo-book-club Toronto Digital Justice Lab : https://digitaljusticelab.ca/virtualgrounds Abolition Futures Reading Group: https://abolitionistfutures.com/pre-conference-events/abolitionist-reading-discussion-group/reading-list/ NGHT SHFTS Festival: https://www.nghtshfts.org/

Amber joined us to talk us through her PhD and the radical possibilities of Black feminism in literature. We also talk about including Black man taking part in conversations on Black feminism and our complicated relationship with academic heroes! Reference list - Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (London: Zed, 1980) Simon Gikandi's chapter in Eva Rask Knudsen and Ulla Rahbek, In Search of the Afropolitan: Encounters, Conversations, and Contemporary Diasporic African Literature (London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2016) Achille Mbembe, ‘Afropolitanism' from Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent (Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2007), pp.26-29 Hazel Carby, Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) Hortense Spillers, ‘Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book' Diacritics, 17 (John Hopkins University Press, 1987), 64 —81 Akwugo Emejulu and Francesca Sobande, To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (London: Pluto Press, 2019)

Amber joined us to talk us through her PhD and the radical possibilities of Black feminism in literature. We also talk about including Black man taking part in conversations on Black feminism and our complicated relationship with academic heros! Reference list - Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (London: Zed, 1980) Simon Gikandi's chapter in Eva Rask Knudsen and Ulla Rahbek, In Search of the Afropolitan: Encounters, Conversations, and Contemporary Diasporic African Literature (London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2016) Achille Mbembe, ‘Afropolitanism’ from Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent (Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2007), pp.26-29 Hazel Carby, Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) Hortense Spillers, ‘Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book’ Diacritics, 17 (John Hopkins University Press, 1987), 64 —81 Akwugo Emejulu and Francesca Sobande, To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (London: Pluto Press, 2019)

[Note: This program originally aired September 2016] The evolution of Black radicalism has occurred while it has not been conscious of itself as a tradition. Its praxis, is both lived and intellectualized. One of the most important explorations of the Black Radical Tradition was undertaken by Cedric Robinson with his work Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition… According to Robin D. G. Kelley on the importance of this work: “It is suggested that perhaps more than any other book, Black Marxism shifts the center of radical thought and revolution from Europe to the so-called "periphery-to the colonial territories, marginalized colored people of the metropolitan centers of capital, and those Frantz Fanon identified as the "wretched of the earth." And it makes a persuasive case that the radical thought and practice which emerged in these sites of colonial and racial capitalist exploitation were produced by cultural logics and epistemologies of the oppressed as well as the specific racial and cultural forms of domination. Yet for all of Robinson's decentering, he begins his story in Europe. While this might seem odd for a book primarily concerned with African people, it becomes clear very quickly why he must begin there, if only to remove the analytical cataracts from our eyes. This book is, after all, a critique of Western Marxism and its failure to understand the conditions and movements of Black people in Africa and the Diaspora. Robinson not only exposes the limits of historical materialism as a way of understanding Black experience but also reveals that the roots of Western racism took hold in European civilization well before the dawn of capitalism. Robinson proposed the idea that the racialization of the proletariat and the invention of whiteness began within Europe itself, long before Europe's modern encounter with African and New World labor. Such insights give the "Dark Ages" new meaning. Despite the almost axiomatic tendency in European historiography to speak of early modern working classes in national terms-English, French, and so forth-Robinson argues that the "lower orders" usually were comprised of immigrant workers from territories outside the nations in which they worked. These immigrant workers were placed at the bottom of a racial hierarchy. The Slavs and the Irish, for example, were among Europe's first "niggers," and what appears before us in nineteenth-century U.S. history as their struggle to achieve whiteness is merely the tip of an iceberg several centuries old.' Robinson not only finds racialism firmly rooted in premodern European civilization but locates the origins of capitalism there as well. Building on the work of the Black radical sociologist Oliver Cromwell Cox, Robinson directly challenges the Marxist idea that capitalism was a revolutionary negation of feudalism. Instead, Robinson explains, capitalism emerged within the feudal order and grew in fits and starts, flowering in the cultural soil of the West… Capitalism and racism, in other words, did not break from the old order but rather evolved from it to produce a modern world system of "racial capitalism" dependent on slavery, violence, imperialism, and genocide.” How do we understand the implications of this tradition in the context of this period of violence and resistance…how do we understand the dialectic of this exploration yet state- and sociocultural violence has been a consistent part of the daily lived experience of the African world… Today…we will explore the Black Radical Tradition through the eyes of those who are attempting to live its praxis. This program was produced in solidarity with communities across the Africana world such as the Fees Must Fall/Rhodes Must Fall…Black First/Land Movements in South Africa…Telema Movement in Democratic Republic of the Congo…and other points who developing their praxis in opposition to the conditions within which they lived… Enjoy the program…

In this episode we talk with Brandon Wrencher, minister, organizer, and facilitator working across the US within faith, education, and non-profit sectors at the intersection of decolonizing church, contemplative activism, and local presence to build beloved communities. We talk about the The Good Neighbor Movement, the church he leads as well as the Liberating Church Project, a network seeking to decolonize new and established expressions of church by looking to hush harbors, the church of enslaved Africans, as a model having contemporary relevance for decolonizing the church.   Books mentioned: Emergent Strategy by Adriene Marie Brown  Faith-Rooted Organizing by Alexia Salvitiera Vincent Harding Memoir: Remnants By Rachel Elizabeth Harding   The Star Fish and The Spider by Ori Drafman and Rod Beckstrom: Get Together By Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huynh, and Kai Elmer Sotto  Black Marxism: The making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric Robinson  Read about the Eight Marks of Liberating Church Read about Lynice Pinkard  More info about Base Communities  Ruby Sales Interview with On Being    Today's episode brought to you by the Church Development Office at the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.   Music from https://filmmusic.io "Macarray Bay" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)   If you have a question about the future of the church that you would like for me to research or have a suggestion for a future guest you can email me at luke@churchischanging.com or leave me a voicemail at (980) 320-0568 and you might end up on the podcast.   Today’s episode and many other resources for the next church can be found at www.churchischanging.com

Writing in Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, CLR James argues that: “the cruelties of property and privilege are always more ferocious than the revenges of poverty and oppression. For the one aims at perpetuating resented injustice, the other is merely a momentary passion soon appeased. The range and scope of CLR James' work cannot possibly be captured in our limited time with you this evening. However, it is the intent for us to spend our time effectively with you in a way that encourages you to explore the work of CLR James as we hear reflections by those who had the opportunity to work closely with him. The epigraph just cited, is one that brings into sharp focus, two of Western Europe's deadly gifts of modernity, its attempted to redefine the praxis of being human (as the great thinker Sylvia Wynter has provide a map for us to understand); and the justification(s) for the creation of private property. This thousand-year process, according to Cedric Robinson, culminating into a racial capitalist system that feeds off the ideas that has structured our current world as a result of slavery, colonialism/neocolonialism, the salience of race as a cultural ideological class construct, the demonization of gender, and iterations of imperialism has left a deep wound on our collective human consciousness, etc… Next, you will hear, in order of speaker, reflections on the Legacy of CLR James from those who worked closely with him: James Early, Former Director of Cultural Studies and Communication at the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies at the Smithsonian Institution; Kojo Nnamdi, Host of the Kojo Nnamdi show on NPR/WAMU FM Sylvia Hill, Former Professor of Administration of Justice, Department of Urban Affairs, Social Sciences and Social Work at University of the District of Colombia; and Aldon Nielsen, who is currently The George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature at Penn State University and author of C.L.R. James: A Critical Introduction. This program was moderated, in part by, E. Ethelbert Miller. Ethelbert Miller is a literary activist and board chairperson of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). He is also a board member of The Writer's Center and editor of Poet Lore magazine. He was previously the Director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University and former chair of the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. He is currently a Resident Fellow at UDC. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Music referenced: KAMAUU: Bamboo & LăVĭNDŭR (LaVeNDeR) [Moving Still]; Kojey Radical: Water; Robert Glasper Experiment: Find You (KAYTRANADA Mix) ft. Iman Omari

Robin D.G. Kelley argues that Cedric Robinson's book is “a critique of Western Marxism and its failure to understand the conditions and movements of Black people in Africa and the Diaspora.” Kelley goes on to suggest that Robinson not only exposes the limits of historical materialism as a way of understanding Black experience but also reveals that the roots of Western racism took hold in European civilization well before the dawn of capitalism.” In fact, it was Robinson who proposed the idea that the racialization of the proletariat and the invention of whiteness began within Europe itself, long before Europe's modern encounter with African and New World labor. Accordingly, such insights give the "Dark Ages" new meaning. I have argued, elsewhere, rooting my perspectives in a critical reading of Robinson, Marimba Ani, Oliver Cox, Audrey Smedley, Sylvia Wynter, C.L.R. James and W.E. B. Du Bois, that race must be understood at a deeper level. To better understand the salience of a fictitious, yet deadly concept, it must be examined as a cultural-ideological class construct, further building on the argument of Du Bois, that “the world was thinking wrong about race, because it did not know. The ultimate evil was stupidity. According to Audrey Smedley in, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, race is a “cosmological ordering system structured out of the political, economic, and social experiences of peoples who emerged as expansionist, conquering, and dominating nations on a worldwide quest for wealth and power.” Being so, we can see that race is expressed in material and non-material ways. It is, in fact, a culturally ingrained, ideologically-driven mechanism that has permeated sociopolitical structures and economic imperatives which guide institutional practices for the expressed purpose to serve deeply rooted insecurities that are wrapped in the myths of white superiority. Today, we bring you, a public critical reading of Cedric Robinson's Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition with Acklyn Lynch, Haile Gerima and AWNP collective's member, Josh Myers. This critical reading is part of a series that is curated at Sankofa Video and Books in Washington, DC. Dr. Acklyn Lynch is a revered scholar/activist of African and African Diaspora history, culture and politics. He has taught at University of Maryland Baltimore County, Howard University, and University of Massachusetts Amhurst. He is author of Nightmare Overhanging Darkly: Essays on Black Culture and Resistance. Haile Gerima is an independent filmmaker and professor of film at Howard University. After the award-winning Ashes & Embers (1982) and the documentaries Wilmington 10—U.S.A 10,000 (1978) and After Winter: Sterling Brown (1985), Gerima filmed his epic, Sankofa in (1993). His films have won numerous awards and are internationally acclaimed for the range and scope of their storytelling, cinematography, and innovations. Gerima continues to produce and distribute his films, including his most recent award-winning film, Teza (2008). He also lectures and conducts workshops in alternative screenwriting and directing both within the U.S. and internationally. Josh Myers currently teaches Africana Studies in the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. He has published a number of scholarly journal articles exploring Africana history, politics and culture. He is author of the forthcoming, We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989. He serves on the editorial board of The Compass and is editor of A Gathering Together: Literary Journal.

    Listen, support, and interact: https://linktr.ee/theentrylevelleft     In this episode, we welcome Sam Bowden, PhD candidate and adjunct professor at Rutgers University to the show to talk about feminism, capitalism, and socialism! See her Rutger's profile here: https://bit.ly/2kkDgPr   1:55: What is feminism both generally and personally? Why is feminism important?   3:30: “Feminism Is For Everybody” by Bell Hooks https://bit.ly/1NSE4jx   8:11: What does every feminist need to know about capitalism?    14:50: How should we define intersectionality or intersectional feminism?   17:45: The Combahee River Collective https://bit.ly/2oUY6nP   22:30: What is “third wave” feminism?   26:50: Louise Kneeland on feminism and socialism https://bit.ly/2kkEjPo   28:00: What does a more socialist form of feminism look like? 35:20: How should the left deal with “woke” appeals to inclusion & diversity?   38:45: Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism by Jasbir Puar https://tinyurl.com/y46emgsb   39:39: How should the left understand identity as it intersects with social class?   46:30: What is leftist intersectionality vs. liberal, postmodern intersectionality?   53:20: How should the left respond to identity politics?   Suggested reading:   Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis https://bit.ly/2EgOtaU Women and Socialism, Class, Race, and Capital by Sharon Smith https://bit.ly/2RW95u6   Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson https://bit.ly/2lXszCM       Music produced by @southpointe__ on Instagram.

The Eden Project plans to bring its distinctive building design and appreciation for biodiversity to Morecambe. It's hoped that this Eden Project of the North would not only bring many visitors to the wider Morecambe Bay area but that it would also help us to understand the incredible ecosystem within the bay. Until now the Bay has often been feared after tragedies such as when 23 cockle pickers were drowned in 2004. It is the UK's largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sands and this ecosystem creates a feeding ground and habitat for many species as well as supporting a unique method of fishing on foot and tractor. Many of those fishermen know how to work and cross the bay safely but Cedric Robinson is the man intrusted as 'The Queen's Guide to the Sands'. In this role he has been helping people cross the bay for 55 years and he has seen the bay changing. Helen Mark meets Cedric and hears how the Eden Project and the Morecambe Bay Partnership hope to transform the bay into a place of fascination for all with landscape art, iconic buildings such as The Midland Hotel and proposed Eden Project and the stories of those who know the bay best.

Reconstruction, the period so named after the U.S. Civil War, is a period that in its totality is a clear articulation of the lasting implications of settler colonialism. Take the conceptualization of ‘reconstruction' itself. This concept implies an implicit notion of equality, collectivism, cooperation, rebuilding, togetherness, democracy, so on and so forth. W. E. B. Du Bois writing in a chapter titled, “The Propaganda of History” in his seminal work Black Reconstruction argues that: “the facts of American history have in the last half century been falsified because the nation was ashamed. The South was ashamed because it fought to perpetuate human slavery. The North was ashamed because it had to call in the black men to save the Union, abolish slavery and establish democracy...." Further solidifying the sharp analysis of Du Bois on the creation and power of nation creating myths, Cedric Robinson, in Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, argues that when examined properly it can be understood that the formation of nation-states and political reigns precipitate the development of founding myths—such as myths of origins. Citing Du Bois, Robinson writes, the “bourgeoisie use of print and press, their appeals to and seduction of the classes they intended to dominate facilitated the fabrication of these national myths. These myths sole purpose was to be recognized in the official instruments of class hegemony: national creeds, social ideologies, philosophical tenets, constitutions, etc. They functioned to legitimate the social orders that they create. As they begin to inform the social consciousness of everyone forced and freely a part of the social order, these myths were substituted for history.” They provide the appearance of being a historical narrative when in fact they are actually nothing more than class-serving rationales for exploitation. The formation of the American state is no different. In fact, when properly contextualized, the American Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the considerations in the Federalist Papers were all expressions of the interests and creed of the American bourgeoisie. Today, Dr. Greg Carr explores this period called, (re)construction. Dr. Carr is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University and on the Faculty at the Howard School of Law. He holds a Ph.D. in African American Studies from Temple University and a JD from the Ohio State University College of Law. The School District of Philadelphia's First Resident Scholar on Race and Culture (1999-2000), Dr. Carr led a team of academics and educators in the design of the curriculum framework for Philadelphia's mandatory high school African American History course. These materials are the first to approach African American History using an Africana Studies methodology. He is a co-founder of the Philadelphia Freedom Schools Movement, a community-based academic initiative that has involved over 13,000 elementary, high school and college students. Dr. Carr has presented his curriculum work for the Board of Public Education in Salvador, Bahia, and has lectured across the U.S. as well as the world. His publications have appeared in, The African American Studies Reader, Socialism and Democracy, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, The National Urban League's 2012 State of Black America and Malcolm X: A Historical Reader. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, the Avalon Village in Detroit; Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Cooperation Jackson in Jackson Mississippi; Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Image: Jacob Lawrence, Migration Series, panel 45, 1941. Marx wrote in the Poverty of Philosophy, in Chapter II Part 1 The Method, Fourth Observation that: “Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc. Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry..." Moving this argument beyond Marx, Africana scholars/activists, thinkers, cultural workers such as, but not limited to, C. L. R. James; W. E. B. Du Bois, Cedric Robinson, Eric Williams, Amiri Baraka deepens the overture by Marx. According to J. Phillip Thompson in his article titled, Capitalism, Democracy, and Du Bois's Two Proletariats, it is suggested that W. E. B. Du Bois arguments in Marxism and the Negro Problem and Black Reconstruction supports the notion that capitalism created two proletariats. Writing in Marxism and the Negro Problem, Du Bois argues that: [the] black proletariat is not part of the white proletariat. . . while Negro labor in America suffers because of the fundamental inequities of the whole capitalist system, the lowest and most fatal degree of its suffering comes not from the capitalists but from fellow white laborers..." Moreover, capitalism (beginning with slavery) offered the white worker, a second/distinct proletariat role; more specifically a policing role in relation to the first proletariat. Du Bois writes in Black Reconstruction that: “The system of slavery demanded a special police force and such a force was made possible and unusually effective by the presence of the poor whites…” Adding more perspective, Eric Williams writing in Slavery and Capitalism, argued that capitalism was an economic modality that replaced the practice of chattel slavery once European elites accumulated the vast surplus capital to firmly fuel the industrial revolution. Adding more perspective, Eric Williams writing in Slavery and Capitalism, argued that capitalism was an economic modality that replaced the practice of chattel slavery once European elites accumulated the vast surplus capital to firmly fuel the industrial revolution. Contemplating the conditions within which African descendant folk where living during the 1960s, Sydney Wilhelm in, Who Needs the Negro? argues that the conditions which produced the rebellions were caught in the complex relationship of internal colonial conditions that were directly related to the nature of work, the historic role and dependency of black labor, and the shift in the needs of a more technologically advanced global economy. In the tradition of those mentioned above, today we ask: Is it important (or time) be critical of labor?...What is the use of labor in this moment, as we live in a world of algorithms and move toward an artificial intelligent future? What does "Labor" mean in a settler colonial society...? It is within this context that Africa World Now Project's own, Mwiza Munthali caught up with Bill Fletcher. Bill Fletcher, Jr., co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal, is a syndicated columnist and long-time labor activist. He has served as President of TransAfrica Forum and was formerly the Education Director and later Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO. He is the author and co-author of a number of books which include: The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Relations, 1934-1941; They are Bankrupting US!; Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice; Claim No Easy Victories: The legacy of Amilcar Cabral. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native, indigenous, African, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people.

Ify and Turquoise discuss the anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Boston Review by Robin D.G. Kelley on Cedric Robinson and racial capitalism, Epsy Campbell is Costa Rica's first Afro-Latino VP, CA seek to change deadly force standards, France's transit workers' strike, Judge Rebecca Dallet elected in Wisconsin, transwoman Sasha Wall murdered, Justice Dept. ordering courts to speed up deportation, Black Panther moves into top 10 earning movies globally, Cardi B to co-host Tonight Show & more.

The conceptual and practical use of racial capitalism by many young activists who were shocked and ignited by their exposure to the events that spurred Ferguson, the uprising in Baltimore, continual state violence at the hands of a hyper militarized police force…and the many reflective actions produced in settler colony seeking to still become a nation-state…has taken on a life that I would argue is less a tool of analysis, but simply a catch phrase. The work to bridge the gap in intellectual engagement and the work it necessitates once understood, is still wide. However, this work is not something that Africana thinkers and activist have shied away from. The long tradition of radical thought and revolutionary practice is found in the cultural membrane of African peoples wherever they are found. The struggle—internal and external—to express and evolve ones' full humanity is the eternal beacon that motivates Africana social, economic, political, and cultural life—whether consciously or unconsciously. So, what is racial capitalism? What did Cedric Robinson mean when he highlighted and explored the development of racial capitalism? Cedric Robinson challenged the Marxist idea that capitalism was a revolutionary negation of feudalism. Instead capitalism emerged within the European feudal order and flowered in the cultural soil of a Western civilization already thoroughly infused with racialism. Capitalism and racism, in other words, did not break from the old order but rather evolved from it to produce a modern world system of “racial capitalism” dependent on slavery, violence, imperialism, and genocide. In addition to this, Robinson was acutely aware of Du Bois's articulation of racial capitalism in his work Black Reconstruction, where he wrote that “The giant forces of water and of steam were harnessed to do the world's work, and the black workers of America bent at the bottom of a growing pyramid of commerce and industry; and they not only could not be spared, if this new economic organization was to expand, but rather they became the cause of new political demands and alignments, of new dreams of power and visions of empire, Today, we will take a deep dive in expanding and solidifying our understanding of racial capitalism in the context of this temporal space we call…right now…with Robin D.G. Kelley. Robin D. G. Kelley is Distinguished Professor of History and Black Studies & Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA, and current Chair of the Department of African American Studies. He is author of a number of books, which include Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times; Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression; Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original; Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class; His latest book project is tentatively titled, The Education of Ms. Grace Halsell: An Intimate History of the American Century. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native, indigenous, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people. Enjoy! Image: Johana Londono

In this episode.... we can listen to Pt. 2 of the conversation I had with Fred Moten where we explore the ideas set forth by radical thinkers ranging from anti-colonialist such as Sylvia Wynter and Aimé Césaire to scholar-activists such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Amiri Baraka. You can catch Pt. 1 of our conversation on our SoundCloud archive. Professor Fred Moten is currently Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, where he teaches courses and conducts research in black studies, performance studies, poetics and literary theory. He is author of number of books including, but not limited to In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition; B. Jenkins; The Feel Trio, A Poetics of the Undercommons; consent not to be a single being; and co-author, with Stefano Harney, of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. We then shift our mental energy a bit… In a January 2017 article in the Boston Review, Robin D. G. Kelley asks: So what did Robinson mean by “racial capitalism”? Professor Kelley answers this question, by arguing that: Cedric Robinson, building on the work of another forgotten black radical intellectual, sociologist Oliver Cox, challenged the Marxist idea that capitalism was a revolutionary negation of feudalism. Instead capitalism emerged within the European feudal order and flowered in the cultural soil of a Western civilization already thoroughly infused with racialism. Capitalism and racism, in other words, did not break from the old order but rather evolved from it to produce a modern world system of “racial capitalism” dependent on slavery, violence, imperialism, and genocide. Capitalism was “racial” not because of some conspiracy to divide workers or justify slavery and dispossession, but because racialism had already permeated Western feudal society. The first European proletarians were racial subjects (Irish, Jews, Roma or Gypsies, Slavs, etc.) and they were victims of dispossession, colonialism, and slavery within Europe. Cedric Robinson goes on to suggest that racialization within Europe was very much a colonial process involving invasion, settlement, expropriation, and racial hierarchy. Insisting that modern European nationalism was completely bound up with racialist myths… " What we will hear next, Professor Kelley reflect on race, class, and movements using Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (Cedric Robinson) in the wake of the emergence of the Movement for Black Lives. Dr. Robin D. G. Kelley is Distinguished Professor of History and Black Studies & Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA, and current Chair of the Department of African American Studies. His work explores the history of social movements in the U.S., the African Diaspora, and Africa; black intellectuals; music; colonialism/imperialism; organized labor; constructions of race; Marxism, nationalism, among other things. He is author of a number of books, which include, but not limited to, Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times; Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression; Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class; and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native, indigenous, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people. Enjoy the program. Music:J Dilla-African RhythmsAmiri Baraka-Why's/WiseDe La Soul-Stakes is HighJohn Coltrane-Kulu S MamaRobert Glasper-Somebody Else ft. Emeli Sandé

Black radicalism [consequently] cannot be understood within the particular context of its genesis. It is not a variant of Western radicalism whose proponents happen to be Black. Rather, it is a specifically African response to an oppression emergent from the immediate determinants of European development in the modern era and framed by orders of human exploitation woven into the interstices of European social life from the inception of Western civilization. . .Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism (79) How do we map the Black Radical tradition? How can we understand its praxis? If we are to truly to refashion the world…to make it better…to remake its institutions…to address its systemic inequities. Find justice. Seek peace. What language can we use to transmit it once we are able “see” it? What are the concepts that it will produce that will allow us to see the world differently? How can we codify the thoughts and practices in an effort to create a new vision of the world while simultaneously resisting the present? What questions do we need to ask that begins to provide insight, and foresight to muddle through the Man vs. Human conflict explored in the work of Sylvia Wynter. Aimé Césaire argues that we cannot look to Western notions of “man”, as this man has been forged out of an arrested understanding of humanity. A narrow conception which consistently depends on the systematic degradation of non-European men and women. He writes in Discourse on Colonialism: “At the very time when it most often mouths the word, the West has never been further from being able to live a true humanism—a humanism made to the measure of the world” (73). More than this…Where do we look? Fred Moten and Stefano Harney suggest that we pay attention closer attention to the undercommons. It is the space in between space that we should look to study blackness. According to Jack Halberstam in Chapter 0 of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study: “If you want to know what the undercommons wants, what Moten and Harney want, what black people, indigenous peoples, queers and poor people want, what we (the “we” who cohabit in the space of the undercommons) want, it is this – we cannot be satisfied with the recognition and acknowledgement generated by the very system that denies a) that anything was ever broken and b) that we deserved to be the broken part; so we refuse to ask for recognition and instead we want to take apart, dismantle, tear down the structure that, right now, limits our ability to find each other, to see beyond it and to access the places that we know lie outside its walls” (6). In this episode, we present a recent conversation I had with Professor Fred Moten where we explore the ideas set forth by radical thinkers ranging from anti-colonialist such as Sylvia Wynter and Aimé Césaire to scholar-activists such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Amiri Baraka. Professor Fred Moten is currently Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, where he teaches courses and conducts research in black studies, performance studies, poetics and literary theory. He is author of In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (University of Minnesota Press, 2003); Hughson's Tavern (Leon Works, 2009); B. Jenkins (Duke University Press, 2010). Moten is also co-author, with Stefano Harney, of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native, indigenous, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people. Enjoy the program. Music:J Dilla--African RhythmsTribe Called Quest--Vibes and StuffA Tribe Called Red--The Virus Feat. Saul Williams & Chippewa Travellers De La Soul--Drawn ft Little Dragon

Thousands of local social justice organizers passed away this year. People doing crucial work in their communities, whose deaths didn't make the headlines.  On this edition of Making Contact, we'll hear about some of the fallen heroes of 2016. Featuring: Joani Blank, founder of Good Vibrations; Carol Queen, Sexologist; Darren Seals, Ferguson activist; Ebony Williams, Chosen Diamonds mentor; Berta Caceres, co-founder of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH); Silvio Carillo, journalist and nephew of Berta Careres; Cedric Robinson, UC Santa Barbara professor and author of Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition; Robin Kelley, UCLA Black Studies and History professor;  Tom Rainey-Smith, Amnesty International Korea coordinator; Luis de la Garza, Member of La Colectiva; Horacio N. Roque Ramirez, Queer Latin@ oral historian Credits: Host: Andrew Stelzer Producers: Monica Lopez, Marie Choi, RJ Lozada, Anita Johnson, Andrew Stelzer Executive Director: Lisa Rudman Web Editor and Audience Engagement Director: Sabine Blaizin Development Associate: Vera Tykulsker More information: Joani Blank Good Vibrations Carol Queen Justice for Berta Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) Silvio Carrillo Cedric J. Robinson: the Making of a Black Radical Intellectual Robin D. G. Kelley Horacio N. Roque Ramírez: Presente! Videos, articles ETC: The Malleable Memory of Darren Seals Who killed Ferguson activist Darren Seals? Who Killed Darren Seals and Why Farmer Baek Nam-gi Dies in South Korea After South Korean farmer's death, family continues fight for justice Berta Cáceres, Honduran human rights and environment activist, murdered Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition In Memoriam: Horacio N. Roque Ramirez Radical Thought: Cedric J. Robinson Korean farmer Baek Nam Gi-Korean critically injured by police water cannons How Muhammad Ali influenced the Civil Rights Movement The Media Monopoly 6th Edition by Ben H. Bagdikian Goldman Prize Recipient Berta Cáceres The post Fallen Heroes of 2016 appeared first on KPFA.