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 . . .
Political Education
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. . . .
The Indiana Prisoner Rebellion of 1985
On February 1st, 1985 guards at the Indiana Reformatory (now Pendleton Correctional Facility) sparked a rebellion with the brutal beating of defenseless inmate Lincoln Love aka Comrade Lokmar Abdul-Wadood. In a successful attempt to save his life, a politicized group of prisoners took several hostages including guards and a politician and occupied a cell block in the Indiana State Prison for 15 hours. . . .
TikTok & “Anti-Social” Media
Short videos have the ability to effortlessly expose mundane ills of capitalism. On the other hand, the premise of these exposés are often to make viewers laugh or make the creator profit, thus overshadowing the actual ills and exploitations they seek to illuminate; or, in other instances, the videos are simply so decontextualized and seemingly ‘random’ that viewers find themselves simply saying “that’s horrible” before swiping up. . . .