In many radical Black and Brown spaces on the Internet, I’ve seen many people pose the question “What radicalized you?” And, for some time, I could not bring myself to give anything close to a direct answer. When relating the struggle for African liberation to our personal lives, many of us have our own stories or narratives that push us forward into the realm of consciousness, especially when having to do with both race and class. However, for some of us (like myself), it may have taken a while to understand how the latter is connected to the former. Growing . . .
Theory Corner
How Not to Celebrate Juneteenth
Any effort to make Juneteenth a national holiday should be viewed with caution. Such a designation would only continue the telling of false tales. It would allow the bad actors of the present day to get away with cheap theatrics while continuing the legal and economic structures which still oppress Black people. The true story of the past would be kept hidden and the story of the present would be sugar coated. . . .
On Police Abolition: Decolonization Is The Only Way
If Black masses are semi-colonized, the solution is decolonization. If slavery was merely reformed, slavery must be abolished in all its iterations. The U.S. police are the representation and manifestation of modern-day slave patrols. For these reasons and others, the police must be abolished in their entirety and other carceral institutions as well. . . .
Umar Johnson isn’t Pan-Africanism.
Umar Johnson advances ideas committed to capitalism, individualism, patriarchy, and homophobia. None of those qualities match revolutionary Pan-Africanism which is always a universal humanist ideology and objective centered on the masses of Africa and all of humanity. . . .
From Black Wall Street to Black Capitalism
Universalizing Blackness as a flat experience allows Amazon to proclaim #BlackLivesMatter, create a Black-owned business page but crush the unions organized by its Black workers. It allows the NBA to paint BLM on its hardwoods, highlight Black business during the NBA finals but pay its predominantly Black and temp workers dirt wages. Universalizing Blackness distorts Blackness itself. It is decorating at its worst. . . .
#AfricanLiberationDay: We Unify or We Die
African people’s struggle against oppression, colonialism, zionism, and imperialism is commemorated each year with African Liberation Day. Founded on April 15th,1958 by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the First Conference of Independent States was held in Accra, Ghana, and attended by eight independent African states. It aimed to create awareness and amplify decolonization struggles and symbolize African nations’ determination to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation. . . .
Afro-Pessimism and the (Un)Logic of Anti-Blackness
What, then, are we fighting for? I want to open the door to this critical, but absent, conversation around anti-racist organising – the space for such conversations is desperately needed. Indeed, many of the claims about race that I have challenged created a suffocating climate in the last decade in which dissent from shared assumptions and attempts to develop theoretical grounds for solidarity are routinely characterised as ‘anti-black’. . . .
The USA – Irrelevant to Africa’s Liberation Struggle
For many Black political activists – from some of the most committed bourgeois Democratic Party stalwarts to some of the most revolutionary socialists – there is a widespread commitment to achieving political aspirations, if not within the current system, at least within North America. However, if what we face in this country goes beyond racial tensions and discrimination and is instead a state of war, then plans for freedom or liberation in the U.S. are grounded in self-delusion. . . .