Category Archives: Black Political Thought

I Wanted to Know What White Men Thought About Their Privilege. So I Asked. – The New York Times

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“I finally got up my nerve to ask a stranger directly about white privilege as I was sitting next to him at the gate. He had initiated our conversation, because he was frustrated about yet another delay. We shared that frustration together. Eventually he asked what I did, and I told him that I write and teach. “Where do you teach?” he asked. “Yale,” I answered. He told me his son wanted to go there but hadn’t been accepted during the early-application process. “It’s tough when you can’t play the diversity card,” he added.Was he thinking out loud? Were the words just slipping out before he could catch them? Was this the innocence of white privilege? Was he yanking my chain? Was he snapping the white-privilege flag in my face? Should I have asked him why he had the expectation that his son should be admitted early, without delay, without pause, without waiting? Should I have asked how he knew a person of color “took” his son’s seat and not another white son of one of these many white men sitting around us?I was perhaps holding my breath. I decided to just breathe.”

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Black AfterLives Matter | Boston Review

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Blackness is being born under a mountain of racial debt.

“As Saidiya Hartman writes, “Debt ensured submission; it insinuated that servitude was not yet over and that the travails of freedom were the price to be paid by emancipation.” Hence enslaved black people were forced to “self-purchase” their own freedom, for they could not even claim a property right in themselves. Is it any wonder that, as Hartmann describes, the enslaved used “stealing away” to describe not only the act of running away, but also in reference to a wide range of everyday activities:

Stealing away involved unlicensed movement, collective assembly, and an abrogation of the terms of subjection in acts as simple as sneaking off to laugh and talk with friends or making nocturnal visits to visit loved ones . . . These nighttime visits to lovers and family were a way of redressing the natal alienation or enforced “kinlessness” of the enslaved.”

Source: Black AfterLives Matter | Boston Review

Women And People Of Color Were Elected At Same Rate As White Men In 2018: Report | HuffPost

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“Specifically, women of color were 4% of 2018 candidates and 5% of winners; white women were 28% of candidates and 29% of winners; men of color were 6% of candidates and 7% of winners; and white men were 61% of candidates and 60% of winners.  “There’s a common assumption that white men are the more electable candidates ― but our research found the opposite,” Brenda Choresi Carter, director of the Reflective Democracy Campaign, said on a press call. “We found women of color, white women and men of color win at essentially the same rate. There’s only one group that loses slightly more ― and that’s white men.”

Source: Women And People Of Color Were Elected At Same Rate As White Men In 2018: Report | HuffPost  

More:  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-of-color-candidates-increase-2018-midterm-elections_n_5bbe8a71e4b0c8fa1367e58e

A National Forum: HR-40 and the Promise of Reparations for African Americans

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Juneteenth National Forum: HR-40 and the Promise of Reparations for African Americans

Press Play: Live-stream will begin here at 1PM EST, Wednesday June 19, 2019Healing and Reconciliation: HR-40 and the Promise of Reparations for African AmericansWednesday, June 19, 2019 (Juneteenth), 10 AM the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution will convene a hearing on HR 40.Following this historic hearing, the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will hold a national forum, 1 PM at the Historical Metropolitan AME Church, 1518 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005. This event is free and open to the public. Doors Open at 12:30 PM. If you are not able to join us in Washington DC, join us here online during the livestream (above).Panelists and speakers to include Rev. Dr. William Lamar, Jeffery Robinson, Dr. Ron Daniels, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Danny Glover, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Kamm Howard, Atty. Nkechi Taifa, Dr. Iva Carruthers, Nana Dr. Patricia Newton, Katrina Browne and others – See program

Source: A National Forum: HR-40 and the Promise of Reparations for African Americans

Coming to Terms with Actually-Existing Black Life – New Politics

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“The role of black public officials within the contexts of cities like Washington, D.C., Detroit, New Orleans, and elsewhere was anything but subordinate.  Subordinate to whom?  Moody misses the very powerful role that these black elites played, and continue to play in formal party politics and local economic growth regimes, in legitimating neoliberalization and, at times, insulating such forces from criticism even when they embark on policy decisions that will have negative social consequences for black constituencies.  More troubling, Moody diminishes the role that various black constituencies, neighborhood groups, landlords, business owners, clergy, educators, and activists, not simply political elites, played in shaping the carceral expansion.  The sense of different subject positions among blacks, which cannot be reduced simply to the “petty bourgeoisie” and the “long struggle for black freedom” as Moody does, is totally lost.  Moody refers to the demands of working-class blacks for more police protection and tougher crime policy, but in a manner that returns quickly to the victim narrative, disconnecting their conscious actions as citizens from their unintended consequence, mass incarceration. ”

Source: Coming to Terms with Actually-Existing Black Life – New Politics

The conditioning that fuels the mental health epidemic for Black men, and how to stop it – The Black Youth Project

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“Gender, through the lens of white supremacy, prescribes how we should be, instead of accepting us how we are. It tells boys they’re not supposed to cry (or even feel emotion), and it tells girls they’re supposed to be good at cooking and play with Barbies. Those are small examples of a much larger issue, and these gendered lessons exist at every turn, are all-consuming and ripple across our lives.There are people in bodies deemed masculine who have been told they are a boy time and time again, even though that’s not how they feel inside. They are told their feelings are unnatural and irrelevant. Boys are told over and over again that they must follow certain rules, their lives must be a certain way, their dreams must be a certain thing.Gender also tells us that we are not whole and are only one part of a whole; the whole being a man and a woman. This is incredibly anti-queer and an unhealthy way to view yourself and a relationship.

Viewing yourself as less than a whole being who possesses the capacity to be masculine and feminine, and perform a variety of roles or possess skills that are deemed feminine, is illogical.It is terrifying to think that so many of us internalize these messages on a deep, subconscious level, a message that exposes men to constant emotional isolation and violence if they exist outside of these preset parameters. It is alarming that many men move through life seeing themselves as incomplete because they will never be with a woman or because they have yet to marry their “soulmate.” It’s alarming that people will not teach their boys how to cook, robbing them of that  that necessary survival skill. It is alarming how many people feel uncomfortable seeing men cry.”

Source: The conditioning that fuels the mental health epidemic for Black men, and how to stop it – The Black Youth Project

The Most Radical City on the Planet | Boston Review

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“Black radicals had been experimenting with electoral strategies since the 1960s. In 2008 the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) studied the lessons learned from this work in the South and identified ways to advance movement goals. This work culminated in the 2012 publication of the Jackson-Kush Plan, which called for people’s assemblies (a grassroots co-governance model), an independent black political party, and a broad-based solidarity economy. Along the way, MXGM members identified Chokwe Lumumba to run for Jackson city council in 2009. He won, and by the time he ran for mayor four years later, he was well known, with an established infrastructure to support him.”

Source: The Most Radical City on the Planet | Boston Review

 

An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement | Poetry Foundation

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“Black Arts Movement poet and publisher Haki Madhubuti wrote, “And the mission is how do we become a whole people, and how do we begin to essentially tell our narrative, while at the same time move toward a level of success in this country and in the world? And we can do that. I know we can do that.”

Source: An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement | Poetry Foundation

The Problem | Prison Gerrymandering Project

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“The Bureau counts incarcerated people as residents of the towns where they are confined, though they are barred from voting in 48 states and return to their homes after being released. The practice also defies most state constitutions and statutes, which explicitly state that incarceration does not change a residence.”

Source: The Problem | Prison Gerrymandering Project