Needless to say, the education system doesn’t want to educate young Black students. To non-Black educators, it would seem educating Black students is such a twisted idea. As they want to advance the oppression we must keep fighting. When we look at school systems there’s a million rules specifically aimed at Black students. Our hair, our physical style, our fashion, everything is done to make sure young Black students can’t truly survive. Advancing the literacy development of the Black male in contexts that are culturally relevant and meaningful has been a challenging task for educators across the P-12 spectrum. African . . .
Political Education
“Ignorance is Bliss” and other Fallacies of Counterinsurgency
By Erica Caines and Geechee Yaw When attempting to educate someone politically, or confront them with the contradictions present in our material reality, oftentimes the phrase “ignorance is bliss” is said, suggesting that not knowing or not being aware of certain things can bring a sense of happiness or contentment. The phrase also suggests that being unaware of certain truths, realities, or problems can be more comfortable and less troubling to an individual than knowing and dealing with them. As playwright and activist, Lorraine Hansberry understood, “Comfort has come to be its own corruption.” Yet, not only is this sentiment . . .
The Imperative of Political Education in a Miseducated Society
Introduction Education is under attack. Book bans and ahistorical curriculum adjustments have been sweeping the nation yet again, ranging from demonizing queer folks and literature to parroting watered-down (at best) recollections of chattel slavery and other historical travesties. The upheaval over “critical race theory” being supposedly taught in K-12 schools has been the trojan horse overshadowing the erosion of the few inclusive, diverse, and critical perspectives in public education curriculum. Experienced teachers are being pushed out of the profession by unlivable wages and unrealistic expectations of how to support students’ learning, lending towards the admitted right-wing goal of defunding and . . .
Reject Anti-Intellectualism
A disingenuous trend is reemerging, bastardizing concepts of “accessibility” to attack and suppress radical efforts at political education. The focus on consistent ongoing political education is shot down as disconnected from the needs of the people. But these critiques should be seen clearly for what they are: anti-intellectualism masquerading as a faux concern for the elusive “everyday person”. These are not genuine concerns for how people learn (ignoring the array of techniques like creating glossaries, audio recordings of written materials, visual aids or establishing group reading environments), these are attacks on the acts of learning and studying. As an article . . .
On Joining an Organization
Revolutionary organizations provide avenues for addressing the issues that are affecting communities, welcoming conversations that build trust and respect through political education, group process, consensus, and mass building. Members of revolutionary organizations are principal participants and decision-makers working towards change. If this isn’t happening in an organization, then that organization is not interested in building “another world”. That organization is not for you. . . .
Three Steps to Black Liberation
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 . . .
Information Warfare for the Revolution
There are many comrades amongst the socialist, anti-imperialist, and world-wide pan-African movements doing great propaganda work on social media right now. Among the cacophony of celebrity worship, consumerism, individualism, and roasting you can find here and there gems of information – well researched and presented. Invitations to conversation and deeper exploration. A light in the dark shown by principled revolutionary socialists, revolutionary nationalists, and anti-imperialists across the globe. These comrades are to be commended for making use of these platforms in this way. But what the last three weeks have revealed is that lights in the dark here and there . . .
Imperialism and the Weaponization of Empathy
Empathy’s endurance among us says that a better and more just way of living is possible despite our current conditions and that the (re)building of that way of living is within our capacity. However, empathy, like almost every aspect of the psyche when we are disorganized and unconscious, can be weaponized and manipulated by that same genocidal global system. We are witnessing this today on a grand scale. . . .