Millennials Are Killing Capitalism

This is part 2 of our 2 part conversation with Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba on their new book Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care. (Part 1 is available here). In this episode we continue our conversation with Kaba and Hayes on the idea that organizing is not match-making. They each talk about organizing across difference and dealing with some of the contradictions that can come up within struggles around shared objectives. They talk about some of the differences between friends and comrades and the transformation that can happen within the waging of struggle.  We discuss about the phrase “hope is a discipline,” what it means and doesn’t mean, whether hope is a useful framework for people, and the notion of active hope that weaves through a lot of the book. We also talk about seasonality within organizing, avoiding burn out, and how to deal with increasing visibility and remain responsible to the social movements you’re in. Mariame Kaba is currently raising funds for the Online Abortion Resource Squad, if folks are able to support that effort we encourage them to do so.  Once again we want to thank Kelly and Mariame for having this conversation with us. You can pick up Let This Radicalize You from Haymarket Books, our friends at Massive Bookshop or your local radical bookstore. We will include a link to the resources mentioned in the episode and a few other items in the show notes. We do want to thank all of the folks who support us on an ongoing basis or for however long they can. And we invite new listeners and those who haven’t become patrons yet to do so. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year. We receive no revenue from foundations or advertisers, so it is only through the support of our listeners that we are able to bring you conversations like this on a weekly basis and often more frequently than that. Become a patron of the show at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism Links: Mariame Kaba is currently seeking to raise $50,000 for abortion funds. Support here. Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care (resources page). When We Fall Apart (mentioned in the discussion)  The Prison Culture Blog Movement Memos Lifted Voices Survived and Punished Our first conversation with Mariame Kaba (2019) Our previous (panel) discussion with Kelly Hayes (2022)  

For this conversation we are honored to welcome Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba back to the podcast.  This is part 1 of a 2 part conversation on their latest book Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care. For both of these folks, I’m going to read shorter bios today, and then link to more of their work, because for each of them I could easily spend 10 to 15 minutes just talking about their backgrounds. Kelly Hayes is a Menominee author, organizer, movement educator and photographer. She is also the host of Truthout's podcast Movement Memos. Kelly is a co-founder of the direct action collective Lifted Voices and the Chicago Light Brigade. Mariame Kaba is an organizer, educator and curator who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. She has founded or co-founded a number of organizations including but not limited to the Chicago Freedom School, Project NIA, We Charge Genocide, and Survived and Punished. She is also the author or co-author of many books and zines including but not limited to No More Police and We Do This ’Til We Free Us. Both of our guests today are known for their extensive organizing around, writing about, and advocacy of prison-industrial-complex abolition and all that entails as a liberatory horizon and arena of radical organizing. Much like this conversation, the book is a radical invitation for folks to organize and take action in big and small ways, but most importantly in collective ways. We really appreciated this book and encourage all of our listeners to get a copy. The book is an excellent resource, it’s funny, it’s engaging, and no matter where you are coming from I’m sure you will find it useful for your organizing, activism and radical engagement with others.  We want to extend our gratitude to Mariame and Kelly for this conversation and part 2 which we will release in a few days, for their organizing and writing and for the many ways that they invite people into abolitionist practice. We will include links to some free companions created for the book as well. These can deepen your study of the book, hopefully collectively, offer reading lists, reading questions and many other really great resources. This episode marks our first episode of June, we released seven episodes in the month of May. That is only possible because of the support of our listeners. We have been experiencing a lot of folks unable to renew pledges lately on the show, which is understandable during harder financial times. We do want to thank all of the folks who support us on an ongoing basis or for however long they can. And we invite new listeners and those who haven’t become patrons yet to do so. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year. We receive no revenue from foundations or advertisers so it is only through the support of our listeners that we are able to bring you conversations like this on a weekly basis and often more frequently than that. Become a patron of the show at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. Links: Mariame Kaba is currently seeking to raise $50,000 for abortion funds. Support here. Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care (look to resources heading on middle of page for the free workbook and discussion guide) The Prison Culture Blog Movement Memos Lifted Voices Survived and Punished Our first conversation with Mariame Kaba (2019) Our previous (panel) discussion with Kelly Hayes (2022)

In this episode we welcome Orisanmi Burton back to the podcast. For this conversation, we discuss Dr. Burton’s latest article, “Targeting Revolutionaries: The Birth of the Carceral Warfare Project, 1970 – 1978.” Which he describes as a supplement to his forthcoming book, Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt. This piece was recently published in the May issue of Radical History Review which is on Political Imprisonment and Confinement. In this discussion we pick up on our previous episode with Orisanmi Burton on carceral warfare. Here Burton talks about the role of Black Panther and Black Liberation Army veteran and former political prisoner Dhoruba bin Wahad’s role in illuminating and analyzing the FBI’s little known Prison Activists Surveillance Program (PRISACTS). Burton situates this program amid a broad set of counterinsurgency programs which operated in multiple theaters of war both internationally and domestically. Burton illustrates how within this international terrain of counterrevolutionary war, figures slipped between various programs, moving between military, intelligence, private defense contract, and domestic law enforcement and prison systems. Importantly, Burton reminds us that many state actors, including congressional bodies, presidents and governors recognized a threat of revolutionary activity in the streets in the 1960’s and by the late 60’s and early 70’s they understood there to be a threat of revolutionary activity behind prison walls as well. To respond, they sought to use programs like PRISACTS to specifically undermine incarcerated revolutionaries. The legacy of this struggle offers a great deal to help us understand the role of US prisons today as sites of domestic warfare. Just a note that there is a second portion of this conversation which we hope to release at a later date. It is briefly referenced in the opening question. Currently we are just waiting for the publication of that second article.   Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt is available for pre-order you can find a link for that in the show notes. And the publisher does have a 40% off sale that goes through the end of May. I can’t wait to have more discussion on that book upon its release. This is our 7th episode of the month of May. We are still behind on our goal for the month. As of publication today we need 7 more patrons to hit that goal. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.  Links to references from the episode: “Targeting Revolutionaries: The Birth of the Carceral Warfare Project, 1970 – 1978.” Previous MAKC interview with Orisanmi Burton  Previous MAKC interview with Dhoruba bin Wahad  Our Interview with Damien Sojoyner  Interview with Orisanmi Burton and Dhoruba on BPM “Resisting Living Death at Marion Federal Penitentiary, 1972" by Alan Eladio Gómez You can pre-order Tip of the Spear at UC Press. It is 40% off through the end of May (with the promo code May40)  

In this episode we interview Professor Elisabeth B. Armstrong. Armstrong is a professor of the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College. She teaches courses on feminist political praxis, with a focus on transnational feminist movements seeking social, economic and environmental transformation. Her courses include Marxist feminism, Women, Money and Transnationalism, decolonial feminist archives and gendered movements about the land, food and survival. Many of her courses are community-based research courses linked to regional and international community movements for the basic needs of land, food, labor, and embodied self-determination. In addition to the book we discuss in this episode Armstrong is the author of The Retreat From Organization: U.S. Feminism Reconceptualized, and Gender and Neoliberalism: The All-India Democratic Women’s Association and Its Strategies of Resistance. In this conversation we are here to talk about her latest book Bury The Corpse of Colonialism: The Revolutionary Feminist Conference of 1949. In 1949, revolutionary activists from Asia hosted a conference in Beijing that gathered together their comrades from around the world. The Asian Women’s Conference developed a new political strategy, demanding that women from occupying colonial nations contest imperialism with the same dedication as women whose countries were occupied. This book tells the remarkable story of how these bold activists constructed a blueprint for anti-imperialist feminist internationalism and shows how movements create a revolutionary theory over time and through struggle. The book is a great discussion of conjunctural analysis, the dedication of these women militants, from communist parties and other antifascist, anticolonial, and anti-imperialist formations in the 1940’s. We talk to Dr. Armstrong about how these women developed their strategy, what they were experiencing in their struggles, and how they sought to put their strategy of an inside/outside approach to anti colonialism and anti-imperialism into practice in the middle of the 20th century as the international anticolonial movement was developing. Also May is winding down and we’re just 9 patrons away from hitting our goal for the month. This is our 6th episode for the month of May. If you appreciate the work we do releasing episodes like this on a weekly basis and running study groups, kick in $1 a month or more and help us sustain the work, which is only possible through the support of everyday folks like yourself. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism Purchase the book from Massive Bookshop  

This episode is focused on the campaign to free Sundiata Jawanza. Sundiata Jawanza is a New Afrikan, abolitionist and human rights activist currently incarcerated in the South Carolina. Today we have four guests, Audrey Bomse and Jenipher Jones both co-chairs of the Mass Incarceration Committee of the National Lawyers Guild, Darren Mack of Prison Lives Matter, and Roc, the Jailhouse Lawyers Speak Housing Program Coordinator.  In this discussion J shares a bit about the Sundiata Jawanza’s freedom campaign, a bit about the case itself, and primarily we focus on a political discussion of Sundiata Jawanza’s work in part discussing his individual contributions, but primarily through the political work that he and his comrades have done through Jailhouse Lawyers Speak. As part of that discussion, we also discuss the overall importance of jailhouse lawyers to the legal education and opportunities at freedom and defense of human rights within US prisons.  We want to ask all of our listeners to please get involved, to connect with Sundiata Jawanza, and to support his freedom campaign by writing the parole board on his behalf. Full details on how to do that can be found at SundiataJawanza.com. To learn more about Jailhouse Lawyers Speak. People can write JLS by mail at:  JAILHOUSE LAWYERS SPEAK PO BOX 673 MERCER, PA 16137 Or email jailhouselawyersspeak@protonmail.com or outthemud.jls@gmail.com Some prior episodes with (or in solidarity with) Jailhouse Lawyers Speak: Jailhouse Lawyers Speak's 2020 Call To Action  “In The Spirit of Abolition” - Jailhouse Lawyers Speak Calls For Shut ‘Em Down Demonstrations "Building Infrastructure: Identifying Tactics for Sustainable Formations": A Panel Discussion Supporting Jailhouse Lawyers Speak's #SHUTEMDOWN2021 Demos

This is part 2 of our 2-part conversation with Felicia Denaud. In this part of the discussion Denaud talks about what the category of political prisoner might do politically, in thinking about movement building through a lens of movement defense in this moment. We also continue our conversation on her work on the Master-State Complex and thinking about the state capacity for violence and the private outsourcing of that "sovereign" power that comes about with the slave trade, plantation economy and settler colonialism. It’s worth saying that this conversation happened a week before Jordan Neely was murdered, but that case also relates deeply to these dynamics described in this conversation. Denaud talks about the use of light and darkness in Fanon’s work and talks about his concept of social treason as a potentially more robust language to deal with those who leverage political struggles for their own personal, political and monetary gain on the backs or at odds with the social movements that propel them to levels of power and accumulation. This is our 4th episode of the month of May. We are behind on our goal for the month and looking to add 26 more patrons this month to hit our goal. If you’re able to kick in at least a $1 a month or $10.80 per year you can become a patron of the show and join the amazing community of folks who make this show possible at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism Links: Lawrence Jenkins Campaign to Free the Pendleton 2 // Our episode on this struggle “Into The Clear, Unreal, Idyllic Light of the Beginning | A Will of the Night" ­­­­­­­"we’ve barely begun to speak/scream/sing: on frankétienne’s dézafi" Renegade Gestation: Writing Against the Procedures of Intellectual History  Cooperation Jackson's Kali Akuno on the lessons of and the ongoing struggle in Jackson MS More on political prisoners: The Jericho Movement (political prisoners) uprisingsupport.org/ atlsolidarity.org/

This is part one of a two part conversation with Felicia Denaud. Felicia Denaud is a writer, poet, and professor of Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She writes, in the words of Sylvia Wynter, toward the end of empire, war, and accumulation by elimination. She’s listens, in the words of Dhoruba bin Wahad for “the last of the loud.” In this part of the discussion we get into Denaud’s work around two key and very interesting concepts within her work. One she describes as the “Unnameable War,” and the other the “Master-State Complex.” We also begin to talk about the piece that spurred this conversation, Denaud’s recent essay “Into The Clear, Unreal, Idyllic Light of the Beginning | A Will of the Night,” which was published by The Caribbean Philosophical Association. In our discussion of that essay here we ask Denaud about what she draws from revolutionary Grenada and Safiya Bukhari. And we close this part of the discussion with Denaud sharing some of the areas of Haitian history that are not examined and appreciated with the care and inquiry they should be if we truly have a dedication to defending revolutions. Felicia wanted us to highlight the fundraising campaign for Lawrence Jenkins, an incarcerated abolitionist who will be coming home soon in Washington state and the campaign to Free the Pendleton 2. We will include links to both of those campaigns . And as always if you appreciate the work that we do bringing you conversations like this on a weekly basis, please become a patron of the show. You can do so for as little as $1 a month, our work is only possible through - and only funded by - the support of listeners just like you. Support at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism Part two of this conversation with Felicia Denaud will be released this coming week. Links: Lawrence Jenkins Campaign to Free the Pendleton 2 // Our episode on this struggle “Into The Clear, Unreal, Idyllic Light of the Beginning | A Will of the Night" ­­­­­­­"we’ve barely begun to speak/scream/sing: on frankétienne’s dézafi" Renegade Gestation: Writing Against the Procedures of Intellectual History 

Kris Manjapra, an expert on transnational history and race, dives deep into his book, "Black Ghost of Empire," exploring the complex pathways of global emancipation and their ties to today's reparations movements. He reveals how legal frameworks historically favored slave owners and perpetuated Black indebtedness. The discussion touches on the haunting legacies of colonialism, the importance of Pan-Africanism, and how confronting these 'ghosts' can reshape modern identity and societal struggles for equality.

In this episode we interview Matyos Kidane and Shakeer Rahman two organizers with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a community organization founded in 2011, working to build community power toward abolishing police surveillance. They are rooted in the Skid Row neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles, based out of the Los Angeles Community Action Network.  Recently the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition has been thrust into the spotlight due to backlash against their creation of the website watchthewatchers.net, which complies police data from multiple public records requests originally made by journalist Ben Camacho best known for his work with KNOCK-LA. While this so-called controversy is interesting and warrants some debunking of the lies being put forward by LA police, politicians and their allies, we also wanted to use the opportunity to highlight the organizing of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition and learn from their process of collective study and how to use state archives, public records requests, community knowledge and analyses of police and local political economy to produce resources for abolitionist movements. Along the way we talk about how Watch The Watchers has grown out of a longer history of Cop Watch practices and ways that this tool already been used by activists, journalists and community members. In the show notes we’ll include links to support the work of Stop LAPD Spying, to a toolkit opposing the Robot Dogs being proposed by the LAPD and a link to some examples of their work. And if you appreciate the work that we do bringing you an assortment of discussions with organizers, activists, scholars and movement veterans on a weekly basis become a patron of the show. We have a goal to add 40 new patrons again this month to help us sustain the work that we do. You can join the amazing folks who make this show possible for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism Links: Stop LAPD Spying Coalition (Donation Page) Toolkit for opposing Robot Dogs in LA (meeting on Friday May 5th) automatingbanishment.org Automating Banishment: The Data-Driven Policing of Stolen Land (Haymarket discussion) with Mike Davis and Stop LAPD Spying 

In this episode we welcome Damien Sojoyner to the podcast.  Damien M. Sojoyner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of First Strike: Prison and Educational Enclosures in Black Los Angeles and Joy and Pain: A Story of Black Life and Liberation in Five Albums. For this episode we invite Dr. Sojoyner to the podcast to discuss his latest work Against the Carceral Archive: The Art of Black Liberatory Practice which offers a distillation of critical, theoretical, and Black organizing and activist work over the past three decades. Working from collections at the Southern California Library the book examines the study and practice of the LA chapter of the Black Panther Party,  the Coalition Against Police Abuse, Urban Policy Research Institute, Mothers Reclaiming Our Children, and the collection of geographer Clyde Woods.  We ask Sojoyner about how he thinks about carcerality and the archive in relation to domestic warfare, and discuss the collections and documents he examines in the book and what they reveal about the practices of organizations grounded in the struggle for Black Liberation in Los Angeles.  Against the Carceral Archive is a great text to come to grips with the level of rigorous study, analysis and dedication that are required for effective organizing agains  t the forces of racial capitalism and the imperialist state. Thank you to Dr. Sojoyner for this book and for joining us for this conversation. We’ll include links to the Southern California Library which provided collections for Sojoyner’s research here and continues to be an amazing resource for people in struggle in Los Angeles. And if you appreciate the work that we do, we strongly encourage you to become a patron of the show, you can so for as little as $1 a month & all of your support adds up to make this show - and our own study groups - possible on a weekly basis.  Links: Southern California Library Pick-up a copy of Against the Carceral Archive: The Art of Black Liberatory Practice