“This Isn’t a Culture War, This Is a Class and Race Offensive” - Alex Charnley, Alana Lentin and Michael Richmond on Anti-racism in This Conjuncture Pt. 1

Josh brought all three of these thinkers together for a discussion on anti-racism in the current conjuncture. This conversation took place across three continents and time zones that were as much as 16 hours apart. Due to its length, we’ve decided to release this episode in two parts, but because of how arbitrary the cut-off point is, we’ve also decided to release them simultaneously so folks can listen to both without having to wait for us to release part 2.

Teacher and writer, Alana Lentin is a Jewish European woman who is a settler on Gadigal-Wangal land (Sydney, Australia). She’s the author of Why Race Still Matters (Polity 2020), The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a neoliberal age with Gavan Titley (Zed, 2011) and Racism and Antiracism in Europe (Pluto, 2004). Her academic and media articles as well as videos, podcasts, and teaching materials are free to be used and available at www.alanalentin.net

Michael Richmond was a co-editor of the Occupied Times and of Base Publication. He has written for publications including OpenDemocracy, New Socialist and Protocols.

Alex Charnley was illustrator and co-editor of the Occupied Times and of Base Publication.

They each provide broader discussions of their organizing, teaching and publishing backgrounds in the discussion.

Michael and Alex’s book Fractured: Race, Class, Gender and the Hatred of Identity Politics was just recently released on Pluto Press. Through an appraisal of pivotal historical moments in Britain and the US, including Black feminist and anticolonial traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, the authors question the assumptions of the culture war, offering a refreshing and reasoned way to understand how historical class struggles were formed and continue to determine the possibilities for new forms of solidarity in an increasingly dangerous world.

Alana Lentin’s latest book Why Race Still Matters is a call to notice not just when and how race still matters but when, how and why it is said not to matter. Lentin argues that society is in urgent need of developing the skills of racial literacy, by jettisoning the idea that race is something and unveiling what race does as a key technology of modern rule, hidden in plain sight.

We want to thank them all for this rich discussion and definitely recommend that people pick up their books and engage with their work.

Two final notes, please continue to support our partnership with Prisons Kill and Massive Bookshop which sends books into prisoners every month. We will include another link to that in the show notes as well.

This is our 54th episode of the year. We are able to bring you episodes every week because of the financial support of folks just like you. So if you want to join the wonderful folks who make this show possible you can become a patron for as little as $1 a month or make a yearly contribution of $10.80 at https://www.patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

Links:

Alex Charnley tweets at @steinosteino

Michael Richmond tweets at @Sisyphusa.

The Prisons Kill Book Club

Fractured by Charnley and Richmond

Alana Lentin's books / AlanaLentin.net