On September 1, 2021, Hurricane Ida hit Southeast Louisiana, temporarily displacing thousands of New Orleans residents, including myself and most of my family. Residents who had the means evacuated early, leaving others to fight for limited resources while simultaneously seeking refuge in neighboring cities. On top of their pre-existing bills, evacuees were forced to front the costs of hotels, food, gas and repairs or even replacement of their own homes. Natural disasters produce an overwhelming amount of stress and anxiety — you simply don’t know if you will have a house to live in until you are able to return home. I . . .
Class Struggle
Southern Workers Gather to Build Workers Assembly Movement
Under the slogan “Build the Workers Assembly Movement! Organize the South!,” nearly 80 workers from eight Southern states gathered in Durham, North Carolina for a Southern Workers Assembly Organizing School over the weekend of April 29 – May 1. Workers came to the school from Atlanta, New Orleans, Charleston, Tidewater Virginia, Richmond, Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Asheville, Eastern North Carolina, northern Kentucky, and elsewhere. Over the last year, the network of areas building workers assemblies across the South has grown substantially to include nine different cities, the development of several industry based councils – including Amazon, healthcare, and education workers – . . .
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 . . .
Class Struggle and Freedom Beyond Colonial Borders
The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief how truly interconnected our world is, how superficial colonial borders are, and thus how the struggle for freedom must link localized organizing to broader global insurgencies. Of course, this is not new. Though our epoch offers unique challenges, problems, and articulations of the dialectic between repression and resistance, history doesn’t repeat itself—but it rhymes. . . .
“Escaping” Capitalism Through Entrepreneurship
Recommendations to create one’s own business have been the go-to when discussing the exhausting and debilitating experiences of capitalism. For those who work in exploitative environments, there is the ongoing cycle of working under harmful conditions that are detrimental to their well-being and survival. In awareness of this many seek resolution in entrepreneurship, assuming that they will be free from the effects of capitalism. Despite the invasiveness of capitalism in every aspect of one’s life, viewing entrepreneurship as a means of escape can result in the cycle of exploitation for marginalized groups. Exploitation is a part of capitalism’s framework, garnering . . .
Bourgeois Idealism & the Promotion of Anti-Intellectualism
I know already as I’m writing this piece that it’s not going to be a piece that’s widely read and/or shared. I know this because I’ve written a number of pieces that have been read and shared by thousands. As a result, I’ve learned that the formula for that level of popularity in literature is ensuring the topic is high on the popular culture list. This relates to what bourgeois celebrities, politicians, etc. are doing. These are the people the capitalist system validates as worthwhile. And, all of us, whether we know it or not, whether we admit it or . . .
Dave Chappelle & The Dishonesty of the African Petit-Bourgeoisie
If you want to really be impressive, figure out how create some jokes that attack the system that’s oppressing all of us. I can tell you already, that will never happen because doing that would do nothing for Chappelle except bring some systemic wrath down upon him and that’s clearly not what he’s trying to do. Again, he said it himself, he’s rich and famous, and at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about for him. If his so-called back and forth with the LGBTQ community hadn’t caused him some personal discomfort, whether he admits it or not, he wouldn’t even be talking about any of this. That should be all you need to know to realize he’s not speaking out to speak up for the African masses against white supremacy. He’s only doing what people like him always do, using the African masses to advance themselves. . . .
Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela: Class Warfare and Socialist Resistance
Why do Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela pose such an existential threat to the U.S.? Why are they able to unite all the wings of the democrat party and the republican party against them? It boils down to two factors. First, the power of their example in attempting to build independent, self-determining projects that center the material needs and interests of the people over those of capital. Second, the class warfare politics of the U.S. state. . . .