Abolition and Accountability in Contemporary Activism

Dylan Rodríguez is a Professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside. He is also a founding member of Critical Resistance. In this episode we talk to Rodríguez about his new book White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logics of Genocide.   Rodríguez explains the historical process of white reconstruction, and the current phase marked by a shift towards what Rodriguez calls multicultural white supremacy.   We talk about themes from multiple chapters, including Rodríguez’s readings of archival documents related to the Freedman’s Bureau and the US colonial war in the Philippines. Rodríguez also talks about Barry Goldwater’s creepy white pseudo-indigenous men’s club and tribal tattoo.   Rodríguez's discusses his analysis of the 13th Amendment, prison strikes and the abolitionist practice of Chicago’s We Charge Genocide campaign.   We frame the conversation around Rodríguez analysis of Safiya Bukhari’s notions of security and radical self-defense. Concepts that he says necessitate forms of militant mutual aid. And he talks about how these concepts along with Bukhari’s definition of Black Liberation are central to abolitionist expressions that deal with the reality of anti-Blackness.