The Black Myths Podcast

Guest - Journalist Liz Olivia Fernandez of Belly of the Beast In this episode, we present our myth as a question regarding the recent protests in Cuba and the subsequent newfound interest in Afro-Cubans: Did racism in Cuba ignite the July 11th protests? We say ignite as in not just what started the protests but what was the main element driving them? The mainstream US press is increasingly giving the impression that there is a racial Revolution happening in Cuba. We discuss this veiled notion while attempting to understand what's happening in Cuba without romanticizing or demonizing its government. In tandem, we consider what impact US policy has on the ongoing condition in Cuba and how the US uses racism to escape its own accountability. To offer a much-needed perspective we are joined by Afro-Cuban Journalist Liz Olivia Fernandez of Belly of the Beast. Liz Oliva Fernández is a 27-year-old award-winning Cuban journalist and producer with Belly of the Beast. She has won a Gracie Award and was co-winner of a One World Media Award for her work presenting the documentary series The War on Cuba. Apart from her journalism and filmmaking, Liz is a dedicated anti-racist and feminist activist. War on Cuba Documentary  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivNOJfvlmOs&list=PLRrWfcMc1UyEb1ctxQCx6GvazKMPLbOFP Twitter - @blackmythspod Instagram -blackmythspod Facebook- The Black Myths Podcast Patreon - patreon.com/blackmyths   Black Power Media IG- @black.power.media Twitter @blackpowermedi1 YouTube- https://youtube.com/c/IMIXWHATILIKEBPMhttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7_X-VeroWRvx6b9iD0BOZrvAOieHbb8p  

This month we are introducing a new series -- Consider the Following. A debate series administered to engage principled disagreements throughout the Black left and the sociopolitical Black world. Typically, our pod is predicated upon debunking quantifiable myths (propaganda) said about Black people. However, this series expands beyond fact and fiction to promote a discourse that works to clarify principled disagreements. This series will air every so often in combination with our normal episode format.  The resolution for this month is "Community Control of the Police is Inconsistent with Police Abolition." We were unable to create the debate format we originally had planned due to unforeseen circumstances but we still built a great discussion/debate for our first attempt. For this episode, we invited Max Rameau of Pan African Community Action and Kamau Franklin of Community Movement Builders to answer challenging questions about CCOP and Police Abolition.  Show notes https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p0yytrynaRQKyYXy6wd1iIkAjJqgXJaYaFK7k-O6qB4/edit

In part 2, expanding upon the impact of algorithms designed as racism --- we discuss the implications of Big Tech and Big Data on the global south with a focus on South Africa. We examine the notion of digital colonialism, how controlled opposition to it mutes our understanding of western tech hegemony and how a People's Tech (Digital Socialism) can help counter it. We are joined by guests: Michael Kwet, a Visiting Fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. He is the author of Digital colonialism: US empire and the new imperialism in the Global South, and hosts theTech Empire podcast. His work has been published at Motherboard, Wired, BBC World News Radio, and Counterpunch. He received his PhD in Sociology from Rhodes University, South Africa. Tshiamo Malatji, an organizer in Bloemfontein, South Africa, focusing on climate change, food sovereignty, and post-natural building as modes of responding to ecological crises. References https://docs.google.com/document/d/17fylaOq1hOXSxdThFhUK5ZDb3-L_upYaun8MhBU1-sY/edit Twitter - @blackmythspod Instagram -blackmythspod Facebook- The Black Myths Podcast  Black Power Media - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7_X-VeroWRvx6b9iD0BOZrvAOieHbb8p

In this episode, we demystify the concept of algorithms and how they are technological representations of oppressive systems at large via Big Data/Big Tech. We explore the recently published Data 4 Black lives report, "Data Capitalism," to demonstrate how the process of data mining and producing algorithms to coerce labor has its roots in slavery. We examine current labor practices with Amazon and advertising mechanisms that all use algorithms to exploit Black people and other colonized people in the US. In our following episode, we will explore these practices and more outside of the borders of the US. Data Capitalism https://datacapitalism.d4bl.org/ Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7_X-VeroWRvx6b9iD0BOZrvAOieHbb8p Twitter - @blackmythspod Instagram -blackmythspod Facebook- The Black Myths Podcast Follow BPM: WEBSITE - https://www.blackpowermedia.org/​ TWITTER - https://twitter.com/BlackPowerMedi1​

In episode 2, we invite Dr. Jared Ball back to the show food to discuss the continuing myths of Black Wall Street in the modern-day. We "investigate" the Greenwood banking app, the myth Of Black dollar circulation, how public policy destroyed Black Wall Street a second time, and the pros and cons of self-sustainability.  SN: We moved our dates this past month to correspond with the hundred-year anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre. We will be returning back to our normal third and fourth-week release schedule. Twitter - @blackmythspod Instagram -blackmythspod Facebook- The Black Myths Podcast Patreon - patreon.com/blackmyths   Black Power Media IG- @black.power.media Twitter @blackpowermedi1 YouTube- https://youtube.com/c/IMIXWHATILIKEBPMhttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7_X-VeroWRvx6b9iD0BOZrvAOieHbb8p  

We're honoring the 100th-anniversary commemoration of the Tulsa Massacre sometimes poorly referred to as the Tulsa riot. We discuss how the pre-massacre Black Wall Street, a prominent Black business district located in the segregated Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was not the self-sustaining Black utopia/Wakanda that popular media has depicted it as. More importantly, we discuss the nature of the racial violence that occurred on May 31st - June 1st, 1921, and how it was an inevitable outcome of racial capitalism. In the end, we hope to honor the descendants of this horrible tragedy by reporting the truth of what they built and how they worked to defend it.

In this bonus episode, we cover the Myth: Flint is an Anomaly by focusing on the city of Tallevast, Florida. In a Boston Review article "Poisoning Tallevast" Dr. James Manigualt-Bryant, Ruby Babywn, and JOSÉ Constantine cover the process of poisoning the water in the majority Black city. As the intro to the article states, "First, segregation blocked this Florida community from equal education and other public goods. Then the military-industrial complex sickened residents and destroyed their property." Environmental racism takes center stage in this special report.  Read here: http://bostonreview.net/science-nature-race/james-manigault-bryant-ruby-bagwyn-jose-constantine-poisoning-tallevast   Twitter - @blackmythspod Instagram -blackmythspod Facebook- The Black Myths Podcast Patreon - patreon.com/blackmyths   Black Power Media IG- @black.power.media Twitter @blackpowermedi1 YouTube- https://youtube.com/c/IMIXWHATILIKEBPMhttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7_X-VeroWRvx6b9iD0BOZrvAOieHbb8p  

In part 2, we explore some of the criticisms of China in Africa that go beyond the mythical claims of colonization. We look at what this means in the context of the impending cold war between China and America. We also examine ways in which Africans on the continent can navigate these challenges as a means of self-determination towards Pan-Africanism. Mikaela Nhondo Erskog is an educator and researcher who works in Pan Africanism Today, a working-class, movement-driven education and solidarity organisation based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She currently works in the interregional office of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and is part of DongSheng News, an international collective of researchers interested in Chinese politics & society (Subscribe for the "News on China: Africa Weekly" here). She is also on the coordination committee of No Cold War, a peace platform pushing for maximum global cooperation, in a moment where the US governments’ aggressive policies and actions against nations like China, threatens the interests of humanity as a whole. Twitter - @blackmythspod Instagram -blackmythspod Facebook- The Black Myths Podcast Patreon - patreon.com/blackmyths   Black Power Media IG- @black.power.media Twitter @blackpowermedi1 YouTube- https://youtube.com/c/IMIXWHATILIKEBPMhttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7_X-VeroWRvx6b9iD0BOZrvAOieHbb8p   Some sources https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b2Hc9yC00JJ3oqdMZhuWLBUfrZka5PSS0cZuWM6y8IQ/edit?usp=sharing

For part 1, we sit down with Mikaela Nhondo Erskog, a researcher for the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, to discuss the prevalent myth of China colonizing Africa. We discuss neocolonialism, the accusations of colonialism against China, what's actually happening on the ground between China and Africa, and a brief history of China's policy in Africa since China became independent. This episode is a continuation of our discussion about Black myths outside of the border of America. Mikaela Nhondo Erskog is an educator and researcher who works in Pan Africanism Today, a working-class, movement-driven education and solidarity organisation based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She currently works in the interregional office of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and is part of DongSheng News, an international collective of researchers interested in Chinese politics & society (Subscribe for the "News on China: Africa Weekly" here). She is also on the coordination committee of No Cold War, a peace platform pushing for maximum global cooperation, in a moment where the US governments’ aggressive policies and actions against nations like China, threatens the interests of humanity as a whole. Twitter - @blackmythspod Instagram -blackmythspod Facebook- The Black Myths Podcast Patreon - patreon.com/blackmyths   Black Power Media IG- @black.power.media Twitter @blackpowermedi1 YouTube- https://youtube.com/c/IMIXWHATILIKEBPMhttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7_X-VeroWRvx6b9iD0BOZrvAOieHbb8p

In part 2, we interview the founding editors of Hood Communist (a collective of African revolutionary nationalists using journalism to advance the fight for African Liberation) about how capitalist propaganda distorts our connections to the African diaspora, Practical ways to make those connections, and the significance of joining an organization order to form a collective fight. SN: At the time of the posting of this episode Hood Communist's Twitter account is suspended for an unexplainable reason despite them breaking no rules. We view this as broader censorship of Black anti-imperialists. To support the reactivation of their Twitter account please @Twitter with the hashtag #FreeHoodComminist.  Erica Caines is a poet, writer, and organizer in Baltimore and the DMV. She is an organizing committee member of the anti-war coalition, the Black Alliance For Peace as well as an outreach member of the Black-centered Ujima People’s Progress Party. Caines founded Liberation Through Reading in 2017 as a way to provide Black children with books that represent them and created the extension, a book club entitled Liberation Through Reading BC, to strengthen political education online and in our communities. Onyesonwu Chatoyer is an African woman marooned in the United States, organizing to defeat capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. She is an organizer with the All-African People's Revolutionary Party and the All-African Women's Revolutionary Union. https://hoodcommunist.org/