cedric robinson

In this episode we welcome César “che” Rodríguez to the podcast.

We had a lengthy conversation about Rodríguez’s piece, “‘Oscar Did Not Die in Vain’ Revelous Citizen Journalism, Righteous/Riotous Work, and the Gains of the Oscar Grant Moment in Oakland, California,” which we will link in the show notes.

César “che” Rodríguez works as a faculty member of Race & Resistance Studies at San Francisco State Univeristy, is a rank-and-file union member of the California Faculty Association, and organized with Change SSF. 

As we got into discussion with che, we had some questions about his own relationships with Clyde Woods and Cedric Robinson and his use of certain methodological concepts. These questions led to in-depth discussion which offered so many insights into Cedric Robinson’s concepts of racial capitalism and racial regimes, and Clyde Woods’ concept of the blues epistemology and academic necrophilia. We decided to release that portion of the discussion as part one of the conversation. In particular che spends a good portion of this discussion laying out how he works with Robinson’s concept of racial regimes dialectically, providing an example of how he uses tools from Cedric Robinson, Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall and others to offer a conjunctural analysis of racial capitalism in Oakland in the lead up to what he calls the Oscar Grant moment. And we get into che’s concept of the hyphy corrido ché's concept linking Woods’ blues epistemology with Robinson’s mandate that ethnic studies scholars “record the noise.”

In part two we will get into a more detailed discussion of the movement that came together and protagonized in the wake of the of state murder of Oscar Grant, including a detailed discussion of the citizen journalism, the organizing and rebellion, and some thoughts on what we should take away from the Oscar Grant moment for movements against police impunity and popular struggles more broadly.

This is already our 6th episode of September, our 53rd of the year. We are currently 17 patrons away from hitting our goal for the month. That’s ambitious, but if a few folks sign up for as little as $1 a month, it is still within reach. Become a patron here. We want to thank all the people who support the podcast through patreon and make the show possible. We also want to give a shout-out to folks who like and share the episodes on social media or write reviews of the podcast wherever they listen to it. 

Links:

“‘Oscar Did Not Die in Vain’ Revelous Citizen Journalism, Righteous/Riotous Work, and the Gains of the Oscar Grant Moment in Oakland, California” (the article from the episode)

Cedric J. Robinson - Critical Ethnic Studies Conference 2013

In this episode we welcome Robin DG Kelley back to the podcast.

Robin DG Kelley is the Gary B. Nash professor of American History at UCLA. He is the author of seven books, and the editor or co-editor of even more. 

For this episode, Kelley returns to the podcast to talk about the 20th Anniversary Edition of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. 

We talk to Kelley about what has been added to the new edition of the book, and discuss some of the ways that Freedom Dreams has been taken up during and in the wake of what Kelley terms “Black Spring” the protests following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others. 

Kelley also talks a bit about the context in which Freedom Dreams was written and why he’s restored a previously unreleased epilogue to the book. 

Beyond that we ask several questions about the original text itself, drawing from the great reservoir of Black radical visions that continue to animate Freedom Dreams 20 years after its release. 

Just a quick plug Robin is currently raising funds for Palestine Legal which is an independent organization dedicated to defending and advancing the civil rights and liberties of people in the US who speak out for Palestinian freedom. We’ll include a link to that fundraiser in the show notes. 

We’ll also include a link to purchase the new 20th anniversary edition of Freedom Dreams from Massive Bookshop. Speaking of Massive our book club for incarcerated readers with Massive Bookshop and Prisons Kill was able to fund copies of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Scenes of Subjection to all 41 its participants, so thank you very much to all of you who supported that campaign! We will be announcing our December book soon so keep an eye out for that. 

And we also hit our goal of adding 30 patrons for the month of November. Thank you to everyone who continues to support us. If you appreciate and enjoy conversations like this, become a patron of the show. You can do it for as little as $1 per month and be a part of the amazing group of folks who make this show possible. 

Links/References:

Purchase Freedom Dreams from Massive Bookshop

Conjuncture: Against Pessimism (hosted by Jordan Camp) with Robin DG Kelley

Robin & LisaGay’s fundraiser for Palestine Legal. More on Palestine Legal

Midnight On The Clock Of The World - (our first interview with Robin DG Kelley)

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. 

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