If history should be any teacher, it has taught us this: the state has no interest in serving the needs of the masses of Black people in this country, who are poor and working class. Billions of dollars for a war abroad (from which weapons manufacturers and their shareholders profit handsomely) yet we can’t pass a minimum wage of $15 an hour — let alone a living wage — at home. COVID has exposed the horrors of having a for-profit healthcare system, with the wealthiest country on Earth having the highest infection and death rate, and with Black people in . . .
Theory Corner
The Usefulness of the Term “Black Misleadership Class”
In what he called “an afterthought” to his December 21 article on “The Black Political Class and Network Neutrality,” BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon dropped an unexpected bomb. He now has “deep reservations” about use of the term “Black misleadership class,” because “it implies that there is or ought to be a class of good and righteous black leaders.” The term is “sloppy and imprecise,” Dixon writes, adding (I hope) sarcastically: “Maybe the good ones are supposed to be the ‘real’ blacks and the bad ones unreal. Maybe the difference [is] having or lacking character, table manners, home training or . . .
Why I Reject Black “American”
There are many Black people living in the US who are hesitant to reject the title “American”. Not because they believe their existence to be anything other than that of a colonized person living inside the empire of the world, who has never been offered the full rights of citizenship that the white ruling class has retained for itself. But because they take great pride in the homes and cultural creations that Black people struggling in “America” have created over the years. And in many ways, I agree. We materially do not have anything else. But that doesn’t mean we . . .
Culture Wars and The Lessons We Still Aren’t Learning
Most recently, Hood Communist editor Salifu Mack sat down with Kali Akuno for an interview discussing his longtime and current movement work. During the interview, Kali talked about his days in the early ‘90s attempting to get organic African based revolutionary broadcasting networks set up. The reason? Kali noted that at that particular time there was an emerging organized right-wing formation on broadcast radio. “…it became very clear to me by 1990 that ‘the right’ was on that. I’d be going to some of these training [sessions] and I’d be right next to skinheads and clan members and all these . . .
Only Socialism Will Save Our Planet
Two important characteristics of socialism point to why it is the only process that will avert the march to environmental and human destruction that we are currently on. First, socialism is a system where people contribute based on their ability and receive based on their labor. Second, socialism eliminates the type of private ownership that allows individuals to own and control massive amounts of wealth. The first characteristic means that people across the planet will stop engaging in the crass consumerism that is particularly rampant in the most developed countries and amongst the most privileged in less developed countries. Today, . . .
The Myth of Good Ideas
This essay was originally published in Tenement Yaad Media, a Caribbean focused media platform. As people who want ‘good’ for Jamaica, one of the realities that we all have to accept is that there is no objective “good” or anything that everyone will support and agree on. We have to do away with the liberal illusion of ‘objectivity’ including the ideas that debates are just about finding the best ideas, that there are things that will ‘work for all’ of us, and that maybe “our leaders” just have not thought about them yet. This type of thinking is something we . . .
The Role of Women in the Revolution
An essay by Josina Machel of FRELIMO, the Mozambique national liberation organization. It was in October 1966, in a meeting of the Central Committee, that FRELIMO decided that the Mozambican woman should take a more active part in the struggle for national liberation, at all levels. It was decided that she should receive political and military training in order to make her more capable of fulfilling whatever tasks the revolution might demand of her. Thus, a few months later, in the beginning of 1967, the first group of women from Cabo Delgado and Niassa began their training. At first this . . .
Trans women are not the enemy. Patriarchy is.
Previously published on Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women. Two years ago, when we were planning to organize the first ever Adventures Live festival, we had invited about 7 feminists and activists from different African countries to be speakers at the event. This included an African trans woman who was invited as a speaker for one of our panel conversations. I had helped to organize travel logistics and as such had been in communication with this speaker. We communicated via email and whatsapp and I built a cordial working relationship with her. I was inspired by her work as . . .