Entering adulthood alongside the dwindling of 2020 uprisings for Black liberation (that I had naively seen as the beginning of the end), I felt very stuck. Understanding I am a poor queer Black woman, I saw myself facing a world where the options presented for survival were dehumanizing at best, and the innate dream of living as a free person essentially destroyed. I wanted to fight the liberal tendency of American youth to begin with strong spirits of resistance, before colleging, working and/or drugging, and ultimately, laying down into the nuzzle of the . . .
Worthy and Unworthy Protest
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is on the verge of effectively making protest illegal. The Public Order Bill has passed in the House of Commons and is expected to be approved in the House of Lords and become law. The bill will ban any protest that “interferes with national infrastructure” or blocks construction or transportation. It gives police powers to search without “reasonable grounds.” It allows for Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPO) which give police the right to arrest anyone who may have violated these deliberately vague rules and prevents them from attending another protest for . . .
Why Are You Actually Mad about Viktor Bout?
The news of Britney Griner’s release in exchange for Russian Viktor Bout was met with some very interesting and troubling conversation at least in the social media world yesterday. For some reason people took great objection to the trade, bemoaning the fact that Griner – a star of the WNBA – was exchanged for a “convicted arms dealer” Viktor Bout, and such a trade was a bad one. I had several people comment that because Bout is such a bad guy because he is a “convicted arms dealer,” they had nothing to celebrate since he was released. Oh, celebrating Britney . . .
Reject the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit
The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) recognizes the “U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit” — scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C. December 13-15th — as nothing more than collusion between neo-colonial powers and U.S. attempts to advance and maintain dominance over the continent. Liberal elements of U.S. civil society will preoccupy themselves with the issues they think should be addressed at the Summit, claiming to act in the best interest of Africa or, as with the Summit of the Americas held earlier this year, attack those who they say do not deserve to be invited. Such dispositions presume the U.S. has honest . . .
Haiti in the Caribbean
Often, when you mention Haiti in conversation and the anti-imperial struggle that has consistently been waged by the Haitian people against imperialist forces for centuries, you are met with minor acknowledgement and some confusion by the listener. Even in cases where there are those who understand Haiti’s battle against imperialist interventions and incursions – many people are still unclear about: “why Haiti.” This is especially true in the present, where there exists a propagandized belief that there are no broader imperialist aspirations in the Caribbean, insofar as those interests cannot be tied to interests in Latin America, and especially to Cuba. Persistent myths about Haiti and confusion about the nature of politics in the Caribbean have allowed systematic investigations into (neo) imperial enterprises in the broader region to go largely uninitiated. This is all at the peril of failing to contextualize sustained foreign meddling in the Caribbean region and the consistent need by those forces for sustained violence to maintain their dominant position. . . .
(don’t call me) Nigger
To be addressed as Nigger is to beremoved from history — with bloodon the book that the wind has blownaway to the face of a Nigger.In your face a Nigger will smile butcan’t walk a mile when the…placards are up!A Nigger will compromise autonomyfor a pot of porridge to appease hisinsatiable appetite — to fill up thevoid just as Judas his patriot.A Nigger is a killer of the poorrighteous teacher, willing to pull thetrigger on the dreamer; poised to makea Stephen out of every believer!A Nigger plays for the gainhooked up on the pain — a baitto fish the Messiah.A . . .
Reject Anti-Intellectualism
A disingenuous trend is reemerging, bastardizing concepts of “accessibility” to attack and suppress radical efforts at political education. The focus on consistent ongoing political education is shot down as disconnected from the needs of the people. But these critiques should be seen clearly for what they are: anti-intellectualism masquerading as a faux concern for the elusive “everyday person”. These are not genuine concerns for how people learn (ignoring the array of techniques like creating glossaries, audio recordings of written materials, visual aids or establishing group reading environments), these are attacks on the acts of learning and studying. As an article . . .
Steps to a Socialist Pan-African Movement
A recently published book by Vita books publishers Essays on Pan-Africanism edited by Shiraz Durrani & Noosim Naimasiah contains essays on Pan-Africanism written by Pan-Africanist intellectuals at various times. In its preface, Prof. Issa Shivji says writings on Pan-Africanism never become dated for the desire of Africans globally for freedom continues burning, sometimes dimming into a flicker, at other times shining bright but never stuffed out however strong winds. The book has diverse chapters dating back to Karim Essack’s publication in 1993. Nevertheless, there is an important chapter on the necessity of building a Socialist Pan-African movement by Shiraz Durrani . . .