Advertisements are ramping up, words are becoming fiercer, and skeletons are coming out of candidates’ closets. This game is nothing new, yet we play it all the time. What does it mean to vote? What does the election spectacle do for us? Within a bourgeois fantasy, it is to elect a person who is totally accountable to the community they represent. I mean . . . this is the ideal, an ideal which has material consequences. The fantasies are, in some perverted way, a reality. The structures and institutions we all engage with organize around these principles rooted in anti-blackness . . .
Electoralism
The Next One Will Be Different
Machine pumped out another think piece this morning . . .
Elite Capture: Martha Karua and the Politics of Representation
Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and a front-runner in the upcoming August 9th presidential election announced that Martha Karua, a former Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister (and an erstwhile fierce opponent), would be his running mate. This historic nomination made her the first woman in Kenya to run on a dominant political party’s presidential ticket. The news was met with varying degrees of enthusiasm and concern. In her acceptance speech, Karua, who vied for the presidency in 2013 and came in sixth said “This is a moment for the women of Kenya. It is a moment that my grandmother . . .
Hillary Clinton and the Myth of the Lesser Evil
In light of recent headlines suggesting that Hillary Clinton should return for a 2024 run at president and her ‘subtweet’ to white moderates that lacks self-awareness, HC wanted to bring back this masterful piece by Editor Onyesonwu written in 2016 to remind our readers of just who Hillary Clinton is. . . .
Haiti: Black Despots and White Rulers
The horror story in Haiti since 2004 is not really about despotic Black government, but is the consequence and crime of global white rule. “Moïse is the product of a broader system blocking Haiti’s democratic path and sovereignty, a system that is built and maintained by the white rulers of the world.” The past week has seen growing protests against the contested presidency of Haiti’s Jovenel Moïse. An unpopular figure who has ruled without a mandate, and, increasingly, by decree , Moïse refused to relinquish power when his presidential term expired on February 7, 2021. While claiming that his term . . .
Biden-Harris: On Celebrating Their Victory as Progress
The 2020 U.S. election victory of the Biden-Harris campaign has been hailed a victory for all peoples. A victory for all those who have felt betrayed by Trump and for those who never liked Trump to begin with. Trump was elected into office with the promise of economic transformation for the poor white masses, from which a significant portion of his support came. The rich white elite, of which he himself is a member, also supported him. Upon entering the White House, however, the Trump administration was spectacular in paying little to no mind the plights and conditions of the . . .
Hitler is Not Dead: On the Politics of Exceptionalizing Donald Trump
Originally published on Hampton Institute “At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. at the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.” —Aimé Césaire, Discourses on Colonialism We are in a sociopolitical moment where it is arguably more crucial than ever to challenge widespread, and often deliberate, misapprehensions regarding historical precedents, to avoid remaking past mistakes and repeating history when so much is at stake. Fascism is a socio-economic and political project and system of governing that began the moment Europeans first made contact with West African shores. The process . . .
Where Do We Stand?
In the last weeks, there have been more and more building conversations around the potential of the 45th president of the US, Donald Trump, staging a coup to stay in office after the November 3rd general elections. The uncertainty of citizens’ (in)ability to vote by mail during a pandemic, and an open supreme court seat coupled with Trump’s rather outright statements suggesting he may not leave, has led to a cartoonish- like panic around how we are discussing the upcoming elections. The same groups are also having the conversations around these alleged possibilities and scenarios on the left that have . . .