My initial introduction to radical feminist politics was through convoluted, often antagonistic online discourses, where past works of radical feminists are engaged, discussed, and ultimately flattened. Audre Lorde has always been among the most popularly referenced Black feminists cited online, for example, but always for her gender critical analysis (which could be used as fodder in heated discourse) and never for her anti-imperialist analysis. It’s much easier for one to gain attention and retweets through cherrypicking her words on gender and sexuality, but much less popular to dive into her works on the imperialist U.S. invasion of her homeland Grenada . . .
African Women
Mawina Kouyate: A Pan-African Comrade
WHO IS MAWINA KOUYATE? A name synonymous with Mother Africa was born in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States of America on 31st March 1941. For 40 good years of her life, Comrade Mawina Kouyate had been an exemplary revolutionary in international, Pan-African and community movements. Comrade Mawina’s early work began in organising women around tenants and welfare rights in her birthplace of Boston. Comrade Mawina attained the height of her revolutionary work when she joined the All-African people’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) in the 1970s, after having been influenced by the work, recruitment and organisation of the Party militants led . . .
The Absurdity of “Diary of a Tired Black Man”
There is an amazingly sad example of a program aired on the IMDB network called “Diary of a Tired Black Man.” Part fiction, part documentary (street interviews with people), full insanity, this effort illustrated in clear terms Kwame Ture’s statement that any analysis that doesn’t include our enemies is a worthless analysis. What he meant by that is any oppressed people who attempt to explain the conditions of their people who leave out the system causing their oppression will always come up with a confused conclusion. We wish to add our own attempt at a logical statement to Kwame’s spot . . .
Neo-Colonialism is Inherently Patriarchal
I was asked to talk about women fighting for Pan-African unity against neo-colonialism but one of the things that came up on our call when I was preparing for this was neo-colonialism as an inherently patriarchal system of exploitation. So I want to begin by talking about the ways in which neo-colonialism is inherently patriarchal. As we may know, colonialism and neo-colonialism impact every facet of life for colonized peoples so there is no way to analyze any aspect of our lives while ignoring the reality of neo-colonialism and imperialism, but since neo-colonialism is fundamentally an economic system, I want . . .
Dining at the Obama Inn
ON 17 MAY, THE VENERABLE New York Times reported: “Mr. Obama will travel to Accra, the capital of Ghana, on July 10 for an overnight stop at the end of a trip that will first take him to Moscow to meet with Russian leaders and then Sardinia for the annual summit of the G8 powers. The president and Mrs. Obama look forward to strengthening the US relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlighting the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development …” Yes, Obama-ists around the globe . . .
Black Birthing People Need Our Support
Black Maternal Health Week is a week of information sharing, panel discussions, and uplifting Black Birthing People usually falling on the second week of April each year. For about the last 5 years this week has grown into a larger scale event from one or two days to a full week of events. As a community, we should be able to support our Black Birthing people from conception to postpartum and beyond. . . .
The Mistake of the First African Summit Conference – Shirley Graham DuBois
This is an excerpt from a speech given by the great Shirely Graham DuBois at UCLA on November 13, 1970, almost a decade after the African Summit Conference in Ethiopia where Pan-Africanists from all over the world came together to sign the Charter of African Unity. You can listen to the section below here, or the entire speech here. . . .
Women as Leaders
The exigencies of this present age require that women take their places beside their men. White women are rallying all their forces and uniting regardless of national boundaries to save their race from destruction, and preserve its ideals for posterity. . . . White men have begun to realize that as women are the backbone of the home, so can they, by their economic experience and their aptitude for details, participate effectively in guiding the destiny of nation and race. No line of endeavor remains closed for long to the modern woman. She agitates for equal opportunities and gets them; . . .