It’s very difficult to really get to the bottom of an issue with a celebrity at the center. On Hood Communist, we have written and talked a lot about the issues created by celebrity-centered analysis. Once the concept of celebrity enters a room, it stands in the middle of the floor and expands outward in every direction, making it impossible for other issues, like class, to get a word in. The conversation can no longer be about the issue itself, only the spectacle of the celebrity and what we project on our relationship with that person. This is proven true . . .
indigenous
Black & Indigenous Solidarity Takes Root in Ecuador
Last week the Black and Indigenous Liberation Movement (BILM) organized a coalition congress between Black and Indigenous communities throughout Abya Yala, which includes the regions of North, Central, and South America, and the Caribbean. BILM held the congress in Quito, Ecuador which has been the center of nationwide strikes throughout this year. This strike led by Indigenous and Black community leaders, against rising food and fuel costs, awakened a decades long issue of the Ecuadorian government excluding Indigenous and Black Ecuadorians politically, socially, and economically. The strikes brought together Black, Indigenous, student, and women groups, to bring the country to . . .
The Earth Remembers What We Did, Let’s Move to Address the Wrongs
Higher rates of drought, deforestation, unpredictable rainfall and more dangerous storms are among the stark indicators of a strained ecosystem. In Nigeria, people are generally aware of the recent rain seasons being too ‘early’ or the cold harmattan winds unusually blowing long into the first three months of the year. When we consider the UN sustainable goals (SDGs), the Paris Climate Accords, or the Kyoto Protocols, it is clear to see that there is more effort to cater to capitalist interests as opposed to holding environmentally destructive corporations responsible for their actions. Consider that the highest polluters like the multinational . . .
Thankstaking & The Normalizing of Colonialism
The key to oppressing a people is to break their spirit. And, the way to break a people’s spirit is to destroy their connection to their culture. A significant piece of white supremacy is to deny the Indigenous story. Doing so diminishes them just as denying slavery is a clear attack against the dignity of African people. The more we do to challenge this attack against oppressed people in every form we can, the more we weaken imperialism’s ability to control the thinking of the masses of people.cu . . .
Don’t Ignore the 2021 Tribunal on Genocide
If it is understood that Africans in the US, a group that at no point in history have chosen to be part of the genocidal and psychopathic US empire, are under attack by that very same empire, then our right to fight for our national liberation, independence and national identity is unquestionable. . . .
Unreading Colonial Food Systems
Originally published in the August 2021 Out of Print Newsletter by the Noname Reads Book Club ︎︎Like many people who went through U.S. public school systems, I am intimately familiar with institutional food; canned vegetables, square cut pizza, frozen & highly processed mystery meats, syrupy fruit cups, all of that. Institutional food is low-cost, low in nutritional value, and arguably pretty gross. I remember asking our school superintendent why our cafeteria wasn’t able to purchase food from the vibrant community of local farmers. He told me that our school was bound up in a large multi-year contract with a number . . .
The Connection Between “No Pride in Genocide” and “FUCK the Fourth”
During the first week in July within the United Snakes, this side of the arbitrary colonial border, you will hear about a lot of events/demonstrations called, “FUCK the Fourth.” These events/demonstrations have historically been organized within Black Radical Tradition in true principled solidarity with the Indigenous people of the western hemisphere, their collective sovereignty, and their continued and consistent struggle against the active colonization of their land, since first contact with European pillagers. “FUCK the Fourth” events/demonstrations are centered around abandoning the practices of our oppressors, observing the traditions of our Ancestors, and celebrating ourselves as Africans forced into diaspora. . . .