Millennials Are Killing Capitalism

In this episode we interview Claude Marks the co-director Freedom Archives. The Freedom Archives the best archive we know of documenting the history of revolutionary, radical and progressive movements of the 1960’s through the 1990’s. 

In this conversation we talk about Freedom Archives and its collections, most of which are available at FreedomArchives.org. 

Claude shares a brief overview of his own radical media work and participation in struggles which led to his political imprisonment. And talks about the plight of political prisoners, and the broader communities targeted and impacted by the prison system, in the US today. 

Claude also shares some reflections that are timely for Black August including historical importance and current relevance of George Jackson, which Freedom Archives honored with their excellent 99 Books digital exhibit last year.

We talk about the FBI’s counterintelligence program, which is detailed in the Freedom Archives documentary COINTELPRO 101 and ask Claude about the relationship he sees between the state’s counterinsurgency in that era and today.

He emphasizes the importance of studying movements that were successful and of understanding the work of political prisoners as part of the struggle that is embraced and supported within more advanced movements. 

We close by asking about projects that Freedom Archives has on the horizon and ways that folks can get in touch with them and also support their critical work. You can donate here to Freedom Archives.

And as always if you like what we do, please consider becoming a patron of our show. You can do so at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism for as little as $1 a month. We offer sincere gratitude to everyone who finds a way to support us and if you can’t contribute monetarily right now, share an episode on social media or introduce some friends to the podcast. 

This episode will include audio clips from George Jackson, Assata Shakur, Corky Gonzales, Dylcia Pagan, & the BPP Kids (these last three are all a part of the Vinyl Project of Freedom Archives) we include these just to showcase some of the amazing material that Freedom Archives brings together. We’ll include links in the show notes to all of these clips, some of which are available in longer form on Freedom Archives. 

In this episode we interview Rasheda Alexander and Sterling Johnson. They are both participants in the struggle to defend the UC Townhomes, which residents have renamed the People’s Townhomes in Philadelphia. This one of the most recent flashpoint struggles in Philadelphia in a long struggle to defend the neighborhoods Black Philadelphians were originally segregated into from the forces of gentrification and displacement. Sterling who is an organizer with Philadelphia Housing Action joined us previously in part 1 of our conversation on the book How We Stay Free to talk about the massive housing struggles for homeless people in Philadelphia in 2020.

In this episode both Rasheda and Sterling offer personal context, overarching analysis, and talk about the issue of housing among other things as a racial justice issue, as a disability justice issue, and as an issue of justice for the elderly.  

Rasheda provides listeners with a concrete understanding of the liberatory potential of struggles like this, how they can transform relations among participants and be an example of abolition in practice. Sterling provides a great deal of analysis and context around the forces housing organizers have to fight, and advocates for a proliferation of encampments as a tactic in that struggle. 

It is important context to know that the protest camp, by which I mean basically the pallets and the tents, was removed by the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office this past Monday. When we had spoken on July 27th it was supposed to originally have been removed on that day. It was through organizing, resistance, and support from other groups in Philly including organized labor that the encampment lasted as long as it did. I’m going to play a quick clip of audio of Philadelphia’s Sheriff who brands herself as a “social justice warrior” as she is removing the encampment. In the background you can hear residents and protesters chanting “we ain’t goin’ nowhere,” which has been a clarion call of the Save UC Townhomes movement. 

Even with the encampment’s tents and barriers removed, the protest and the fight to Save UC Townhomes will continue. Please connect with them by following them on social media for more updates on how to support their struggle. And get involved in housing struggles in your own community. Even if it is not your home being impacted, these fights affect all of us.

We’ll include more links in the show notes, including an Opinion piece that came out in the Philly Inquirer after the demolition of the encampment:

“We are still waiting for the Mayor’s Office to respond to our demands. However, I am grateful for all of the support that our protest camp has received, and look forward to continuing our fight regardless of the court or the sheriff’s decision to dismantle it. I cherish this community and I will continue to fight for it until I can’t anymore.”

That quote by Maria Lyles, who is a resident of UC Townhomes, sums up the perspectives from residents who have been struggling to defend their community in this fight. It also echoes much of Rasheda’s sentiment in this conversation.

An editors note, this episode was a live conversation much of which the interviewees were outside, or at UC Townhomes. So there were a couple parts that had to be clipped, and there are still some issues that remain in the audio, in all cases they are brief and clear up quickly.

At Millennials Are Killing Capitalism we had an initial goal of adding 25 patrons this month to keep up with attrition. We’re only 6 patrons away from hitting that goal as we publish this on August 11th, so hopefully we can exceed that goal this month. Thank you to all the folks who support us on patreon, and if you would like to join them you can do so for as little as $1 a month on patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

Our music is provided by Televangel.

Now here is our conversation with Rasheda Alexander and Sterling Johnson.

https://savetheuctownhomes.com

https://www.instagram.com/saveuctownhomes/

https://twitter.com/saveuctownhomes

Frank Rizzo, the UC Townhomes, and the fight to save Black Philadeplhia by Rasheda Alexander and Sterling Johnson

Article referencing the Black Bottom Tribe (mentioned in episode) 

I'm being evicted from University City Townhomes by Maria Lyles

Philadelphia Housing Action

In this episode we are honored to welcome Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore to the podcast.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore is Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences and Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Co-founder of many grassroots organizations including the California Prison Moratorium Project, Critical Resistance, and the Central California Environmental Justice Network, she is author of the prize-winning Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California.

In this episode, we ask questions primarily from Wilson Gilmore’s latest book Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation. Along the way we talk about consciousness, conjunctural analysis, the horizon of abolition, and various modes of organizing against premature death. We also ask a couple of questions facing abolitionists today, and Ruth Wilson Gilmore offers some insights into the various forms of struggle in which she finds hope.

We strongly encourage folks to pick up Abolition Geography which is packed full of insights from Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s past 30 years of thinking and writing about abolitionist struggle, much of which she participated in directly. 

Our music as always is provided by Televangel.

We want to give a huge thank you to all of our patrons for supporting the show. Our work here is only possible because of your support. We don’t sell ads, we don’t put our episodes behind a paywall and we don’t charge guests fees. We don’t do any of those things because we don’t want any corporate interests influencing our content, and we want all of our episodes to be freely available to anyone who wants to listen. So if you aren’t already a patron, and you enjoy this conversation please become a patron of the show. You can do so for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

In this interview we wanted to do a discussion about the law, politics and abolition. We thought that this was an important thing to have some discussion on, in light of all the recent Supreme Court rulings which have rightfully caused a lot of anger, indignation, protest and organizing. 

Our guests for this week are Sophia G and Nathan Y. Sophia is a lawyer defending criminalized immigrants and a PIC and border abolitionist. Nathan is an abolitionist lawyer defending criminalized immigrants and defending Cuba from economic imperialism. 

In conversation they both work to demystify concepts like the law and rights as neutral concepts or principles. They emphasis the importance of seeing courts as a site of struggle, where any wins or losses made do not come a result of good legal arguments, but as a result of larger social forces and power struggles. 

Both emphasize the importance of keeping politics front and center, and of viewing the law as something to be understood, only so that we can disrespect it and overcome it, rather than putting it on a pedestal. And that lawyering like any other skill or trade, needs to be put in service of social movements, which means dispensing with the mythology and decorum of the law, and liberal understandings of it.

Along the way they discuss interesting tactics, such as jury nullification (Beyond Criminal Courts Jury Nullification toolkit) in the wake of Dobbs and new anti-abortion laws and mass participatory defense campaigns for people facing criminalization and deportation. They also talk about some of the work of Survived and Punished New York. So also follow them on social media for ways you can support struggles like the ones described by Nathan and Sophia in this episode.

This is an important discussion for organizers, activists, people who have been activated by recent Supreme Court decisions, and for attorneys and law students who are trying to understand how they can use their legal skills in ways that frankly are pretty foreign to most folks in the legal profession.

One struggle mentioned near the end of the episode: 

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This is our fifth episode of July at Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. Every episode we do requires many hours of research, preparation, recording, editing and production. We operate the show totally independently and without any advertising or financial backing other than the support of our listeners. It’s super easy to become a patron of the show and you can do it for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. By doing that you will of course be notified of each new episode as well as every time we start up a new session of our ongoing study groups.

In this episode Chris Gilbert returns to the podcast.

Chris Gilbert is a professor of Political Science in the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela. His articles have appeared in Venezuela Analysis, Monthly Review, CounterPunch and various other publications. Gilbert is the creator of the Marxist educational program “Escuela de Cuadros,” broadcast on Venezuelan public television. Along with Cira Pascual Marquina, Chris is also the co-editor of the book Venezuela: The Present As Struggle: Voices From The Bolivarian Revolution which we did a two-part episode on last year.

This conversation is framed around a recent article of Gilbert’s that was published in the Monthly Review. The piece is called “Mészáros and Chávez: The Philosopher and the Llanero” and it tells the story of the relationship, personal, theoretical and practical between István Mészáros and Venezuelan revolutionary and former president Hugo Chávez. 

At the heart of the discussion is the question of the commune. And the theory of communes as the basis for a transition to socialism, as while as the practice of communes in Venezuelan society. Along the way, Gilbert also contextualizes the discussion in Mészáros’ theory, Chávez’s programs and experimentation, and in the material practice of existing communes in Venezuela today. 

We also discuss Mészáros’ critiques of 20th Century Socialism and his explanation of the Capital System as a metabolic system, that must be broken down and replaced by a completely new metabolism.

And of course Gilbert reminds people in the US, Canada and Europe that they should be pressuring their governments to end the inhumane sanctions on Venezuela.

We hope you enjoy this episode. We want to thank all of our patrons for your support. If you like what we do and can afford a small monthly or yearly contribution, head over to patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. Our podcast is 100% funded by our patrons and we put out new episodes every week.

Links:

The piece this episode is in dialogue with 

Part 1 of our discussion Gilbert & Marquina's book Venezuela The Present As Struggle

Part 2 of that discussion.

Huge Chávez's speech "Golpe De Timon" or "Strike At The Helm"

Hugo Chavez's - Aló Presidente Teórico #1 (since we coudln't find a full English translation we linked two related pieces: Venezuelanalysis /Utopix on Aló Presidente Teórico #1  

Angel Prado The Commune Holds the Solution to the Crisis

A film referenced by Gilbert on the episode as well: 5 Factories Film - Worker Control In Venezuela 

Our music is by Televangel 

In this conversation we interview Tracy Rosenthal who is a co-founder of the Los Angeles Tenants Union. Their book, Abolish Rent, written with Leonardo Vilchis, is forthcoming from Verso. 

We talk to Tracy about their recent piece “Inside LA’s Homeless Industrial Complex” which discusses the aftermath of LA’s Echo Park encampment from 2020, and current trends in social control with respect to unhoused people in Los Angeles. Tracy examines the relationship between police and ostensibly social service oriented nonprofit organizations in developing new forms of carceral containment, under the auspices of so-called interim housing. 

We also talk a bit about some of the organizing that unhoused folks are undertaking in response to these trends. As well as the work Tracy and others are doing with the LA Tenants Union and the Autonomous Tenants Union Network. 

And we are as always working to maintain our capacity to bring you these shows as frequently as we do. Doing that requires monetary support. We appreciate every single one of our patrons. If you are looking to join them in financially sustaining this show, you can become a patron for as little as $10.80/year, or $1/month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. And if you’re not able to give monetarily, boost the patreon link on your social media or share an episode with someone. It all helps.

Music for our podcast is provided by Televangel. 

Articles discussed in the episode: 

“Inside LA’s Homeless Industrial Complex”

"101 Notes On The LA Tenants Union"

Tenant Organizing: LA Tenants Union and the Autonomous Tenants Union Network. 

In this episode Dr. Jared Ball returns to the podcast. Jared Ball is a professor of communication studies at Morgan State University. He is the author of The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power and I Mix What I Like!: A Mixtape Manifesto and he is the co-editor along with Dr. Todd Steven Burroughs of the book A Lie Of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X. 

He is one of the founders of Black Power Media and the host of the iMiXWHATiLIKE program, which can be found on that platform. He is also a co-host of BPM’s Remix morning show. 

This time around we focus on his work in the realm of media criticism.  In particular Jared has for many years engaged in criticism around representations of Black Radical figures in both mainstream media and academic work created for the mass market. 

In this conversation we talk about the tactics used to distort, misrepresent, or erase entirely the legacies of figures like Malcolm X and Kwame Ture. We also get Jared’s take on whether or not Judas and the Black Messiah represents a break from a history of demonization of Black revolutionaries in US mainstream media.

On top of that we have a lot of fun talking about some of Jared Ball’s favorite radical movies.

We encourage folks to watch and support Black Power Media if you don’t already, you can find them on YouTube or at BlackPowerMedia.org. And we’ll include links to some of Jared Ball’s work that informed this discussion.

Thank you as always to all of our patrons for your support. And if you like what we do, our conversations are totally supported by our listeners. You can become a patron for as little as $10.80 per year, or a dollar a month over at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

Links:

BlackPowerMedia.org

imixwhatilike.org

Prior appearances of Jared Ball on MAKC

Great Harlem Debates (Jared Ball cites this in the show with reference to Barack Obama's presidency)

Journalism For Liberation and Combat Seminar Series 

The Vernon Philosophy of Black Media Avoidance

Defining Black Power: Jared Ball Debates Peniel Joseph

The Assassinations of Malcolm X Literal and Posthumous: A Contributors Roundtable

Myth: The Malcolm X Movie is Accurate (w/ Dr. Jared Ball) - The Black Myths Podcast Bonus Cut

Revolutionary Reflections, Revolutionary Vision: Kwame Ture at 80

From Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism

Selma, Media and Dr. John Henrik Clarke Remembered

Judas & the Black Messiah - JAB's first thoughts  & Chairman Fred Hampton Jr & Rosa Clemente discuss Judas & The Black Messiah with Jared Ball

In this episode we interview two organizers to discuss the struggle for National Democracy in the Philippines and solidarity with that struggle.

Jen Benitez has been a community organizer with the Philippine-US Solidarity Organization since 2019. Her family is indigenous Zapotec migrants from Oaxaca, Mexico. Her desire to support the Filipino people’s struggle for justice stems from a shared history of colonialism, forced migration and anti-imperialist solidarity between Mexico, the U.S., and the Philippines. 

Jaz Tabar is a cultural worker and community organizer with Anakbayan Long Beach as well as a regional leader for BAYAN Southern California. Since they started organizing in 2017, they have been able to study and apply the revolutionary history and lessons of Filipino resistance to their own experiences as a diasporic Filipino organizing to build a mass movement for the achievement of National Democracy in the Philippines!

Both Jaz and Jen get into more detail on their organizations in the episode.

In conversation they talk about what drew them both to organizing in solidarity with the masses in the Philippines. And talk about the struggle for National Democracy in the Philippines against what they describe as the three basic problems, feudalism, bureaucrat capitalism, and imperialism. 

They discuss their political education programs, which include a study of Philippine Society and Revolution (which can be found in this collection) and why they understand the Philippines as a semi-feudal, semi-colonial society.

They also talk about the campaign to pass the Philippine Human Rights Act and end US military aid or so called “security assistance” to the Philippines.

They discuss why their organizations have a history of calling for the ousting of dictators in the Philippines, a call that they continue with the new heads of state Bongbong Marcos & Sara Duterte.

Jaz & Jennifer also explain the context of red-tagging and anti-terrorism laws in the Philippines and the way these efforts provide a blanket pretext for the silencing of dissent and other forms of violent, carceral and even deadly repression both in the Philippines and among the international solidarity movements.

We also have a discussion of the importance of land reform for the Philippine masses, as a society that is made up of 75% peasants. 

We will include some more ways people can get involved below.

And again if you like what we do, new months always do mean that some patrons can’t renew with us for financial reasons. We’ve set a modest goal of adding 15 patrons again this month to keep up with those monthly declines. We want to thank those who have continued to support us and if you haven’t become a patron yet, please do so for as little as $1 a month so we can continue to bring you content like this every week. You can become a patron at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

Links:

PUSO: https://linktr.ee/puso.socal

PUSO IG: @puso.socal

Philippine Human Rights Act: humanrightsph.org 

Anakbayan IG: @anakbayanusa

BAYAN IG: @bayan_usa

Anakbayan LB: @anakbayanlb 

In this episode we interview Dr. Mary Helen Washington. Mary Helen Washington is an accomplished African-American literary scholar and the editor and author of many books including Midnight Birds and Black-eyed Susans: Stories by and about Black Women, Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women 1860-1960, Memories of Kin, and the book we focus on in this discussion on The Other Blacklist: The African-American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s.

Mary Helen Washington is also a  Distinguished Professor in the English Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. She previously served as the president of the American Studies Association. Washington worked for many years developing Black Studies programs, including in Detroit where she has stated she was “part of the ground troops helping in the activities of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM), an offshoot of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.”

In this conversation we specifically focus on the work of Gwendolyn Brooks prior to her joining the Black Arts Movement in the late 1960’s, within the Black cultural and literary left that Washington analyzes in The Other Blacklist. 

Mary Helen Washington situates Brooks within this Black cultural milieu as a member of the South Side Community Art Center in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood and as someone who was connected and had relationships to Black communists, and other communists and progressives as well as to cultural institutions and magazines of the Popular Front.

Washington highlights Brooks' attentiveness to working class concerns and critiques of racism both interpersonally and institutionally in her writing as far back as the 1940’s. She also highlights Brooks’ work in dialogue with critiques reflected by other communist and progressive Black women of her era, including Claudia Jones, Lorraine Hansberry and Alice Childress. In doing so, Washington argues that Brooks’ work offers early blueprints for Black Left Feminism operating within her poetry, essays and her novel Maud Martha.

The discussion is also firmly attentive to the racial politics and the anticommunism of the 1950’s, in which racially radical or progressive analyses were automatically cause for suspicion, surveillance, and potentially repression. 

Additionally, Mary Helen Washington talks about other important figures from her book The Other Blacklist including other communist and leftwing Black figures of the 1950’s including visual artist Charles White, and authors Lloyd Brown, Alice Childress, and Frank London Brown.

We want to thank all of the patrons who support our show. We are funded solely by our listeners and patrons. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month or 10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

In this episode we interview Matt Deitsch, artist, journalist, organizer and former founder and director of March For Our Lives. 

This episode is a bit different from many of ours. Rarely have we engaged with the politics of gun control, or with an area so tightly situated and controlled within the arena of electoral politics and non profit organizing. But we felt that interviewing Matt offered a unique opportunity to examine the politics of gun control in the so-called United States, and the relationship between movements against gun violence and mass shooters and the Democratic Party, their think tanks, well funded non profit organizations and the ruling class. 

Matt presents a specifically interesting perspective, as someone who was activated by the devastating gun violence in Parkland Florida, and politicized through the organizing efforts they and others undertook through their organization March For Our Lives. Also as someone who provides a highly critical reflection around the work they and others undertook in relation to that movement, but who also believes they learned valuable lessons for mass organizing.

Along other things Matt talks about organizing as youth, the strengths, limitations and contradictions of that, discusses moments of dialogue with other organizers and youth, particularly ones from different class and racial backgrounds and how these relationships and discussions altered their own political viewpoint around the scope of issues of violence. As someone who has spent much of the last 4 years deeply involved in electoral organizing, Matt cautions against the amount of energy put into it and highlights some of the forces most invested in that use of organizer time and effort.

Ultimately Matt argues for the essential work of political education, of building power outside of the electoral arena, and holding a political horizon based in anti-imperialism, abolition, and socialism. They draw out linkages of different forms of violence and highlights the bipartisan influence of the police state and the military industrial complex on the politics of gun control reform as an antidote to violence, within the politics of either dominant party.

Just as a note, this episode was recorded prior to the new bipartisan gun legislation or the court’s recent decision around concealed carry restrictions, which would likely have had minimal impact on the discussion. It was also recorded before the courts officially gutted Roe. But there are many cautionary perspectives and suggested approaches that we think warrant consideration and are relevant to a new generation of people hopefully pushed into action by the violence of all aspects of the US state.

Lastly just want to thank all of our patrons for your support. These are difficult times for everyone with rising costs, and our show is totally dependent upon your support. So if you like what we do and want to contribute to our work please become a patron at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

In this episode we interview Dr. Dorothy Roberts.

Dorothy Roberts is the George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the Penn Program on Race, Science, and Society. The author of four books, including Killing the Black Body, Fatal Invention and Shattered Bonds. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  

In this conversation we’re honored to host Dr. Dorothy Roberts to discussed her latest book Torn Apart: How The Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—And How Abolition Can Build A Safer World. 

We talk to Dr. Roberts about how family policing or the so-called child welfare system functions within a larger carceral web in the United States. She talks about the geographic zones of family policing and discusses the origins of our family policing system in slavery, settler colonialism and Elizabethan poor laws.

Roberts discusses the deep ableism that undergirds the family policing system and talks about how family policing has been a frontline for the war on drugs. She talks about how the system overwhelmingly disrupts predominantly Black and Brown families in the US, along with those of poor white people, noting that it also criminalizes children and is in many ways indistinguishable from other parts of the prison industrial complex.

Along the way, Dr. Roberts lifts up the many struggles of families against this system, with stories of the ways the system terrorizes families, as well as the many ways that people are organizing against the system. As we close the conversation, these examples of resistance, mutual aid and organizing provide a foundation for building a reality in which family policing is abolished and replaced by a much more powerful network of care that is more effective at preventing and resolving issues of familial violence and abuse.

We are only able to bring you episodes like this due to the support of our listeners. You can support us at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year. We are down a few patrons again this month, so if some new folks can join in and support that’d be really helpful in ensuring we can continue to bring you these episodes on a weekly basis. 

UPDATE: Transcript of the episode is now available here.

In this episode we interview Karim from Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement (NYC) and author Wendy Trevino. 

Karim is an anti-prison, anti-police anarcho-communist. And an author of the book Burn Down The American Plantation.

Wendy Trevino was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. She lives and works in San Francisco. She is the author of Brazilian Is Not a Race and Cruel Fiction. Wendy is not an experimental writer.

This conversation is a bit different than many of ours. We wanted to have a critical conversation about the western left’s response to the war in Ukraine, but often we associate anti-imperialist analyses with Marxist-Leninists.  Within the anarchist left and other parts of the western left there are those who support the Ukrainian war effort for various reasons. Although we don’t often take explicit positions as a platform, we at Millennials Are Killing Capitalism think any support for the Ukrainian war effort is mistake. Josh has co-hosted a conversation on their other platform Return To The Source podcast, and now we host this one here.

In this episode Karim and Wendy provide an analysis of the situation in Ukraine, and they grapple with several of the common misconceptions or positions they encounter. They also talk about the state of affairs for the antifascist movement in the US. And they remind folks that there are many other international struggles that need support, and that there are struggles that need to continue to be waged against fascism, borders, and prisons right here in the belly of the beast.

It’s a new month and as always we need the support of our listeners to keep this show going. We truly appreciate all of the folks who do contribute to the show at whatever level they can, it means everything to us and to our ability to bring you these episodes weekly. Our only financial support for this show is the support from our listeners. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 per month and you get emails with each episode plus periodic invitations to study groups and things like that. We’ll have another study group starting up soon this summer. 

Links:

RAM-NYC

Burn Down The American Plantation: Call for a Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement

Cruel Fiction

Brazilian Is Not a Race (PDF)

He also worked with a number of other organizations and struggles over the years including work with the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, the Attica Brothers Legal Defense Committee, the National Lawyers Guild, Prison Legal News, and California Prison Focus. 

In this conversation we talk about some lessons along the way of Ed’s political development, from social prisoner to jailhouse lawyer to organizer to revolutionary to political prisoner. 

Ed offers unvarnished reflections from a life in struggle, characteristically with no holds barred for what he refers to as “the tamed left.” 

Our conversation was informed by Ed Mead’s autobiography Lumpen and by Daniel Burton-Rose’s books on the George Jackson Brigade. We will include a full list of sources in the show notes.

Links:

Lumpen: The Autobiography of Ed Mead

Theory and Practice of Armed Struggle in the Northwest: A Historical Analysis

Creating A Movement With Teeth: A Documentary History of the George Jackson Brigade

Guerilla USA: The George Jackson Brigade and the Anticapitalist Underground of the 1970's

Sundiata Acoli's Support Fund

Washington Prison History Project Oral Histories

Abdul Alkalimat is a founder of the field of Black Studies and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. A lifelong scholar-activist with a PhD from the University of Chicago, he has lectured, taught and directed academic programs across the US, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and China. His activism extends from having been chair of the Chicago chapter of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s, to a co-founder of the Black Radical Congress in 1998.

This conversation is framed around his recent book The History of Black Studies. Alkalimat shares some of his background, and his experiences with the struggles for Black Studies in the 1960’s. We also talk about his role in the founding of the Institute of the Black World.

In discussing Black Studies, we ask Dr. Alkalimat about the ideological strains that make it up, the origins of it as an academic discipline, and what Black Studies looked like before it was allowed into the academy and how it continues to look outside of the academy.

A focus in this conversation is a discussion about social movements and the type of knowledge that is examined within them and the type of knowledge that is produced by them. Within this, we get into discussion about the role of cadre development and mass political education in social movements, and the role that Alkalimat thinks Black Studies can and should still play for these struggles. 

We close with some discussion of the work Dr. Alkalimat is currently doing with the Southern Workers Assembly to organize the South. 

In the show notes, we’ll include links to several of the resources Abdul Alkalimat talks about in the episode.

Thank you again to all of the folks who continue to support us on patreon. If you want to support our work our greatest need right now is for patrons who support on a monthly basis, you can do that for as little as $1 a month. And if you don’t want the monthly payment, you can also make a yearly contribution. You can find our patreon at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

Now here is our conversation with Abdul Alkalimat on The History of Black Studies.

Links:

The History of Black Studies

The Future of Black Studies (forthcoming)

Abdul Alkalimat's website & weekly listserv

Southern Workers Assembly

The Wall of Respect

New Philadelphia 

The cited conversation with Africa World Now Project

In this conversation we interview Steven Osuna to discuss his piece “Class Suicide: The Black Radical Tradition, Radical Scholarship, and the Neoliberal Turn” from the 2017 collection Futures of Black Radicalism.

Steven Osuna is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at California State University, Long Beach. He is a scholar of racism and political economy; globalization, transnationalism, and immigration; and policing and criminalization.

Steven was born and raised in Echo Park, Los Angeles and is a son of Mexican and Salvadoran working-class migrants. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Homies Unidos-Los Angeles and a member of the Philippines US Solidarity Organization (PUSO).

In this episode Josh interviews Osuna, to discuss the role of the academic who sees their work as in solidarity with movements for the working class, anti-imperialist movements, and struggles for socialism and communism.

Osuna talks about the concept of class suicide as put forth by Amilcar Cabral and additionally embodied in the theory and practice of figures like Frantz Fanon and Walter Rodney. Steven also talks about his own experiences as a student of Cedric Robinson. And Steven talks about Robinson’s notion of the Black Radical Tradition alongside his own background and interest coming out of the Marxist tradition through learning about the El Salvadoran communist movement and also bringing an interest in liberation theology.

Ultimately the conversation is concerned with how someone taking on a petty bourgeois position, and gaining access to the resources available in a place like a university can actually use that position and those resources in material solidarity with concrete working class struggles. Osuna does not mean this to be an abstraction, for him it means participating in working class, anti-imperialist movements and doing so by lending whatever labor those movements need rather than the position that might feel most comfortable to the petty bourgeois academic.

Big shout-out to our new supporters on patreon and folks who have continued to support us. Our work is totally funded by our listeners and so we appreciate every dollar folks are able to give to keep this podcast going. If you would like to become a patron you can do so at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism at whatever you can afford, and your support makes this show possible.

In this episode we welcome back Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò. Táíwò is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University.

Earlier this year we interviewed him to talk about his book Reconsidering Reparations.

In this episode we talk about his latest book Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) which hits book stores this week. 

In this conversation we talk about elite capture as a concept. We talk about how elite capture has morphed dominant understandings of what folks mean by the term “identity politics” in stark contrast to the version of it put forth in the Combahee River Collective Statement back in 1977. 

Femi dispels notions that the ways elites have captured and reappropriated this term are unique to identity politics, and argues persuasively that in fact elite capture is a system behavior that shows up in all kinds of places and ways within our social systems, and that social movements and our radical ideas are not immune to this process. 

We also talk about some other examples and versions of elite capture big and small that are occurring all the time, and talk about how we might best fight back against this phenomenon. 

In addition we get some discussion of what Táíwò refers to as deference politics, as well as politics that are based around trauma. Including some of the things that he thinks these approaches get right, and some of the things that they get wrong and ways we might differently engage the problems they seek to address.

And we also get into some discussions around the attention economy and Femi touches on privilege discourse as well. 

We’ve continued to take some hits to our patronage for the show lately. We just want to say that we know times are tough for everyone financially right now and we just really want to give a shout-out to everyone who is continuing to give what they can to support the show. If you haven’t become a patron yet, it’s the best way you can support our ability to bring these conversations week after week. You can do that at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year.

Now here is our conversation with Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò on Elite Capture

Elite Capture from Haymarket Books

Elite Capture from Pluto Press

Other items referenced in the show:

How We Get Free by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

The conversation between Asad Haider and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on socialism and identity politics.

Our own discussions with Barbara Smith of the Combahee River Collective

In this episode we interview David Austin, and discuss his book Moving Against The System: The 1968 Congress of Black Writers and the Making of Global Consciousness.

David Austin is the author of Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex, and Security in Sixties Montreal and Dread Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution. He has also produced radio documentaries for CBC Ideas on the life and work of both CLR James and Frantz Fanon. A former youth worker and community organizer, he currently teaches in the Humanities, Philosophy and Religion Department at John Abbott College and in the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. 

For Moving Against The System Austin provided an introduction and compiled and edited the speeches from the Congress of Black Writers.

In this conversation we talk with David Austin about the context of this historic gathering in Montreal, Canada in 1968, amid the rising tide of the Black Power Movement. We ask Austin about the involvement of key figures from the congress including Kwame Ture, Walter Rodney, CLR James, James Forman, and Richard B. Moore among many others.

David Austin also shares some great insights from the intellectual and political practice of CLR James, and the proliferation of study circles with which James engaged directly.

We ask about some of the contradictions and debates that come up in the Congress around the presence or role of whites, questions of Black Nationalism and socialism, varying analyses around class and race, lessons to be derived from African history, the omission of women from the group of presenters, and some of the generational divides. 

Finally, David shares some great reflections on the vibrancy of Black internationalism in the middle of the 20th Century, further highlighting figures like CLR James and Walter Rodney, and discussing Claudia Jones as an example as well.

If you’re interested in picking up this book, its part of the Black Critique series from Pluto Press.

And if you like the work that we do and are able to support, we definitely need new patrons to continue to sustain our work. You can support the show over on patreon for as little as $1 a month and it’s a great way to keep up with the podcast, and also you get notified when new rounds of our study group open up.

Several of Austin's works, including Moving Against The System are available also through Canadian publisher Between The Lines.

In this part of the conversation we talk to Gabriel Bryant and Abdul-Aliy Muhammad. These conversations were recorded separately, just due to availability, but are presented here as a unified whole. 

Gabriel Bryant is an organizer and youth advocate for groups that have included Sankofa Community Empowerment and Philadelphia Community Bail Fund. 

Abdul-Aliy Muhammad is a Philadelphia-born writer and organizer. They often write about Blackness, bodily autonomy and medical surveillance.

In this conversation both Gabe and Abdul-Aliy offer reflections on the Philly Black Radical Collective and on the long work of organizing outside of the spectacle of the mass mobilization. Gabe talks about some of the nuts and bolts of community organizing and building power as well as some recent developments in solidarity organizing for political prisoners including Mumia Abu Jamal’s latest campaign #LoveNotPhear.

Abdul-Aliy talks about their piece from How We Stay Free, which is titled “Black Trans Lives Matter.” They talk about organizing in defense of Black Trans and Black Queer lives and working with Dominque “Rem’mie” Fells’ family after Dominque was murdered in 2020.

Featured in this conversation are also two songs from Gabe, whose stage name is Gabriel Prosser, a nod to the enslaved abolitionist who planned a massive slave rebellion in Virginia at the turn of the 19th Century. We’ll include links to Gabe’s bandcamp in the show notes.

After the interviews with Abdul Aliy and Gabriel, How We Stay Free editors Christopher Rogers and Fajr Muhammad rejoin a discussion of other struggles ongoing in Philadelphia.

In the show notes, we’ll include links to buy How We Stay Free, and possibly get a solidarity copy for a student, elder, organizer or political prisoner.

And if you like what we do, we’re still trying to get our patreon back where it was a few months ago. We’re only down about $20 this month as we release this episode, so if a few of you can commit to $1 a month or more, or a small yearly pledge, we should be able to make that up.

Black Philly Radical Collective

Abdul-Aliy's piece "As Philadelphia mourns Dominique ‘Rem’mie’ Fells, Black trans lives still matter"

Our previous conversation with BPRC organizers Megan Malachi & Robert Saleem Holbrook

Abdul-Aliy Muhammad's latest on the struggle for MOVE family members to recover their children's remains

Gabriel Prosser Bandcamp

Songs featured in the episode:

“New Season” Gabriel Prosser featuring Verse Mega 

“F.U.T.U.R.E.” Gabriel Prosser featuring Blak Rapp Madusa - 

This is part 1 of a 2 part conversation with the editors and contributors to a book called How We Stay Free: Notes on a Black Uprising. This book is edited by Christopher R. Rogers, Fajr Muhammad and the Paul Robeson House & Museum and is a great testament to the local dimensions of the Black uprising in Philadelphia in the months after the murder of George Floyd. 

In this conversation Chris and Fajr introduce themselves and talk about the book and its contents and authors, which include many important activists and organizers here in Philadelphia. After that, we talk to organizers Sterling Johnson and Wiley Cunningham from Philadelphia Housing Action.  They talk about the monumental housing struggles in Philadelphia during 2020, giving credit to their fellow housing activist Jennifer Bennetch, who passed away just recently at only 36 years old.

They talk about many aspects of this complicated struggle which included a squatting movement as well as multiple encampments and complex negotiations with both Philadelphia Housing Authority and the City of Philadelphia. Although they offer understandable caution with regard to what they actually won, this struggle was historic in its scale as well as in the agreements that were leveraged through direct action. It is a struggle that warrants deeper examination by housing activists in Philadelphia and around the world, as the forces of capitalism continue to dispossess the most vulnerable.

At the end of the discussion Chris brings in a note on one of the big housing campaigns currently underway in Philly, the struggle to Save the UC Townhomes, a public housing facility that the owner is attempting to sell, a move that will cause dozens of Black families to be evicted by July 22nd if it cannot be stopped through organization and direct action. 

You can buy How We Stay Free, and possibly get a solidarity copy for a student, elder, organizer or political prisoner.

And if you like what we do, we’re still trying to get our patreon back where it was a few months ago. We’re  only down about $20 this month as we release this episode, so if a few of you can commit to $1 a month or more, or a small yearly pledge, we should be able to make that up. 

Links:

How We Stay Free

Paul Robeson House & Museum Website/Paul Robeson House & Museum Twitter

Philadelphia Housing Action/Philadelphia Housing Action Twitter/Timeline

Save The UC Townhomes/Save UC Townhomes Twitter

In this episode we interview Dhoruba bin Wahad. A leading member of the New York Black Panther Party, a Field Secretary of the BPP responsible for organizing chapters throughout the East Coast, and a member of the Panther 21. He is a veteran and co-founder of the Black Liberation Army and a former political prisoner. He - and Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt - are, we believe, the only two Black political prisoners to use COINTELPRO documents to secure their release from political imprisonment. Both the FBI and NYPD settled with Dhoruba in lawsuits he filed against them for framing him.

There are a number of great writings and conversations with Dhoruba bin Wahad out there. But we asked Dhoruba to do this episode to discuss his political philosophy. He found our approach to that a bit humorous at times, but as one of our favorite thinkers, and someone who embodies their theory in social practice to a degree few of us can imagine, we hoped to contribute to his legacy in this way.

In this conversation we cover some common themes in Dhoruba’s writing, we ask about his ideology, his frequent use of the term “whirlwind,” Democratic Fascism, his emphasis on humanism, and the differing historical destinies of white and Black people in the US. Dhoruba talks about demands, encapsulation, the local nature of politics, Black sovereign thinking, solidarity, united fronts and political consequences for injustice. We also discuss the iconification of Assata Shakur and what it means to support the right of self-determination and the people who become political prisoners for exercising that right.

There were other questions and follow-ups we wanted to ask, but time did not allow for it. We hope that if possible we will be able to record a part 2 in the future.

More importantly, we want to note that we are not requesting financial support for our platform for this episode. Instead what we hope our listeners will do is contribute to the GoFundMe that Community Movement Builders has set up for Dhoruba bin Wahad’s medical fund. Dhoruba has stage 4 cancer and is in need of financial support. The GoFundMe will only be up for two more weeks, so if you can give something to that, please do so now. We’ll include a link to that in the show notes.

Links:

The GoFundMe

Dhoruba's website 

Dhoruba's content on imixwhatilike.

Dhoruba's content on Black Power Media.

Still Black, Still Strong

Look For Me In The Whirlwind

Dhoruba bin Wahad's Political Writings (in French, English and German)