Millennials Are Killing Capitalism

In this episode we interview Efemia Chela. Chela is a Zambian-Ghanian writer, literary critic, and an editor. Efemia joins us in her role as the commissioning editor at Inkani Books, which is the publishing division of The Tricontinental Pan Africa NPC, a research institute that collaborates with and is aligned with the work of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. In this conversation Efemia shares a bit about some of the current struggles in South Africa, and situates Inkani Books as a publisher within those struggles as well as within their broader African continental context as a Pan African publishing house.  The focus of this discussion is Inkani’s latest book, Tell No Lies, Claim No Easy Victories which brings together an extensive set of Amílcar Cabral’s interviews, official speeches and PAIGC party directives from 1962 through 1973. It features a foreword by Grant Farred and an introduction by Sónia Vaz Borges who we’ve previously hosted on the podcast.  We engage Efemia about several of Cabral’s important theoretical interventions, and the grounding of his theory in the real movement of the Guinean and Cape Verdean people and their liberation struggles. We talk about the continued relevance of his thought today to people and movements across the African continent, and discuss studying it in group contexts. Among other things, we discuss the idea of a new humanity forged in struggle, Cabral’s thinking on culture, on patriarchy, his caution with regards to decolonization and neocolonialism, and the question of what Cabral calls organic security for radical and revolutionary movements.  We want to deeply thank everyone who has been supporting us over these last 5 years. In just the last week we surpassed 1 million downloads around the world, almost half of those downloads have come this year. That feels like an amazing milestone. And we’re so thankful, and hope to continue to grow from here. We do want to note however that we don’t get paid anything for downloads. We don’t sell ads. And it is December, and this month we have a goal of adding 31 patrons, one per day. We’re always catching up with non-renewals this time of year as folks divert money towards holiday expenses. Which is understandable. So if you can afford to become a patron of the show, even if it’s just $1 a month or a small yearly contribution, it really helps a great deal at this time. You can do that at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. Links: Tell No Lies, Claim No Easy Victories by Amílcar Cabral (Inkani Books) Inkani Books website Tricontinental South Africa Other MAKC Episodes on Cabral & the PAIGC: Militant Education, Liberation Struggle, Consciousness - PAIGC Education with Sónia Vaz Borges (a recent study from Sónia on the PAIGC's education programs)  The Life of Amílcar Cabral and the Struggle of the PAIGC with António Tomás “Culture is Sovereign” - Amílcar Cabral and African Anti-colonial Internationalism with António Tomás Other episodes which reference Cabral historically or theoretically (there are others, but these were most handy): "We Need To Be Active In The Working Class Struggle For Socialism Globally" - Steven Osuna on Class Suicide "We Remember The Attempts To Be Free" - Joy James on Black August and the Captive Maternal Becoming Kwame Ture with Amandla Thomas-Johnson "Abolition Is Inherently Experimental" - Craig Gilmore on Fighting Prisons and Defunding Police      

In this episode we welcome Robin DG Kelley back to the podcast. Robin DG Kelley is the Gary B. Nash professor of American History at UCLA. He is the author of seven books, and the editor or co-editor of even more.  For this episode, Kelley returns to the podcast to talk about the 20th Anniversary Edition of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination.  We talk to Kelley about what has been added to the new edition of the book, and discuss some of the ways that Freedom Dreams has been taken up during and in the wake of what Kelley terms “Black Spring” the protests following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others.  Kelley also talks a bit about the context in which Freedom Dreams was written and why he’s restored a previously unreleased epilogue to the book.  Beyond that we ask several questions about the original text itself, drawing from the great reservoir of Black radical visions that continue to animate Freedom Dreams 20 years after its release.  Just a quick plug Robin is currently raising funds for Palestine Legal which is an independent organization dedicated to defending and advancing the civil rights and liberties of people in the US who speak out for Palestinian freedom. We’ll include a link to that fundraiser in the show notes.  We’ll also include a link to purchase the new 20th anniversary edition of Freedom Dreams from Massive Bookshop. Speaking of Massive our book club for incarcerated readers with Massive Bookshop and Prisons Kill was able to fund copies of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Scenes of Subjection to all 41 its participants, so thank you very much to all of you who supported that campaign! We will be announcing our December book soon so keep an eye out for that.  And we also hit our goal of adding 30 patrons for the month of November. Thank you to everyone who continues to support us. If you appreciate and enjoy conversations like this, become a patron of the show. You can do it for as little as $1 per month and be a part of the amazing group of folks who make this show possible.  Links/References: Purchase Freedom Dreams from Massive Bookshop Conjuncture: Against Pessimism (hosted by Jordan Camp) with Robin DG Kelley Robin & LisaGay’s fundraiser for Palestine Legal. More on Palestine Legal Midnight On The Clock Of The World - (our first interview with Robin DG Kelley)

In this conversation Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson return to the podcast for the second conversation on their book Rehearsals For Living (part one is here). This conversation was recorded in late October, about a month after recording the first part. Most of these questions were conversations from the reading which we just weren’t able to ask during our first conversation due to time constraints.  In this conversation we talk more about architects of climate catastrophe in Toronto, about fascist monsters, and we talk about cooptation and elite capture. We also discuss moments of intense spectacle and important organizing and world-making that takes place all the time outside of the light of media attention. Robyn reflects on the spread of abolitionist ideas into the mainstream and Leanne discusses prominent scholarship within settler colonial studies in the academy and the disconnect between that and indigenous forms of knowledge. Once again, Rehearsals for Living is a really powerful read and we encourage you to pick it up from Haymarket Books or from your local bookstore. As we release this episode, we’re just 2 patrons away from hitting our goal for the month of November, which was to add 30 patrons to make up for non-renewals and continue to grow. If you appreciate conversations like this and the other 175 episodes of this podcast, you can help sustain our work at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

[Note: In the episode image the artwork behind Dionne Brand at the podium is by Torkwase Dyson, as is the cover art work for Nomenclature] In this conversation we are thrilled to welcome Dionne Brand to the podcast.  This is a conversation with her new book Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems and also with a number of her lectures, interviews, and dialogues over the years. If we reference something not in Nomenclature we have done our best to include a link to it in the show notes.  We ask questions about themes and ideas we hear or read Brand grappling with in her work, as well as questions that we grapple with in relation to her work. These include questions about time, epistemology, nature, the category of the human, Black thought, spectacle, narrative, capital, imperialism, socialism and liberation. If you find value in this conversation and others we publish, we encourage you to support the podcast at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism, we are 100% supported by our listeners and you can be a part of that for as little as $1 a month. Dionne Brand is a renowned poet, novelist, and essayist. Her writing is notable for the beauty of its language, and for its intense engagement with issues of international social justice. Her work includes ten volumes of poetry, five books of fiction and three non-fiction works. She was the Poet Laureate of the City of Toronto 2009-2012. From 2017-2021 Brand was Poetry Editor at McClelland & Stewart- Penguin Random House Canada. Dionne Brand became prominent first as an award-winning poet, winning the Griffin Poetry Prize for her volume Ossuaries, the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Trillium Book Prize for her volume Land to Light On. She’s garnered two other nominations for the Governor General’s Literary Award for the poetry volumes No Language Is Neutral and Inventory respectively, the latter also nominated for the Trillium and the Pat Lowther. She has won the Pat Lowther Award for poetry for her volume thirsty also nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the city of Toronto Book Award.  Her 2018 volume, The Blue Clerk, was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry and the Griffin Poetry Prize and won the Trillium Book Prize. Brand has also achieved great distinction and acclaim in fiction and non-fiction. Her most recent novel, Theory won the Toronto Book Award 2019 and the BOCAS fiction prize. Her novel, Love Enough was nominated in 2015 for the Trillium Book Award. Her fiction includes the critically acclaimed novels In Another Place, Not Here, At the Full and Change of the Moon, and, What We All Long For an indelible portrait of the city of Toronto which also garnered the Toronto Book Award. Her fiction has been translated into Italian, French and German. Dionne Brand’s non-fiction includes Bread Out Of Stone, and A Map to the Door of No Return, which has been widely taken up by scholars of Black Diaspora and An Autobiography of The Autobiography of Reading. In 2021 Brand was awarded the Windham Campbell Award for fiction. Dionne Brand has published nineteen books, contributed to many anthologies and written dozens of essays and articles. She has also been involved in the making of several documentary films. She was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at St. Lawrence University in New York and has taught literature and creative writing at universities in both British Columbia and Ontario. She has also held the Ruth Wynn Woodward Chair in Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University. She holds several Honorary Doctorates, Wilfred Laurier University, University of Windsor, Simon Fraser University, The University of Toronto, York University and Thornloe/Laurentian University.  She lives in Toronto and was Professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph until 2022. She is a member of the Order of Canada. In every area of her work Brand has received widespread recognition through literary awards, honorary doctorates, and praise by the likes of Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Kamau Braithwaite, and so many, many others. In the show notes we will include Dionne Brand’s full bio which further details her award winning work in poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and film. As well as her distinguished work as an educator, documentary film maker, and poetry editor. Sources: Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems David Naimon’s interview with Dionne Brand on Between The Covers Podcast  Adrienne Rich and Dionne Brand in Conversation  Dionne Brand: The Shape of Language (along with Torkwase Dyson)  “I Am Not The Person You Remember” - In Memoriam of MF DOOM with Hanif Abdurraqib “The Oppressed Have a Way of Addressing Their Own Conditions” - On Joshua Myers’ Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition   Dionne Brand - “An Autobiography of the Autobiography of Reading”  

[The image contains the cover of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Scenes of Subjection, two images of author Saidiya Hartman, and one image from visual artist Torkwase Dyson (which is included in the book) entitled set/interval/enclosure] For this conversation we are extremely honored to welcome Saidiya Hartman to the podcast.  In this conversation we’ll be talking about the new 25th anniversary edition of Hartman’s groundbreaking and influential work Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. In addition to Scenes, Saidiya Hartman is the author of two other amazing books, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval and Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. She has been a MacArthur Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, Cullman Fellow, and Fulbright Scholar. She is a Professor at Columbia University. This 25th anniversary edition features a new preface by the author, a foreword by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an afterword by Marisa J. Fuentes and Sarah Haley, notations with Cameron Rowland, and compositions by Torkwase Dyson. We ask about a number of the key formulations in Scenes, including Hartman’s work on empathy, the fungibility of Blackness, the varied violences and violations of enslavement, white supremacy and the popular theater, and the constitutive limits of bourgeois liberal democracy.  We also talk about Black Feminism, gender differentiation, and the role of cishetpatriarchy in law, violation, and aspiration.  A content notice, that although we don’t hover on details, the conversation does include references to rape, abuse, and sexual violence in the context of slavery and in its afterlives. Hartman shares some clarifications on where the pessimism in Scenes lies. She also offers scathing critiques of the limits of emancipation, of the structure of citizenship, and of the project of inclusion within US empire and racial capitalism.  Along the way, we take time to attend to various forms of Black anarchism and the attendant survival programs that Hartman observes and highlights in Scenes and in her later work, particularly Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. We are also partnering with Massive Bookshop and Prisons Kill to send copies of this book into prisoners. This is part of a new project where we will pick one book each month to share with incarcerated people. We’ll provide a link to this program in the show notes if you want to contribute to it. You can also pick up a copy for yourself while you’re over there if you like. And lastly if you like what we do, and want to support our capacity to bring you conversations like these. Our platform is 100% supported by our listeners. Thanks to everyone who became a patron last month we hit our goal thanks to your support. If you would like to support us for as little as $1 a month you can do so at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

This is the continuation of our conversation with Winston James about his latest work Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik. In part 1 we talked about McKay’s origins in Jamaica up through the Red Summer of 1919 when he would pen his famous poem “If We Must Die.” In this conversation we talk about McKay’s time in Harlem, his relationship with Hubert Harrison, his support of - and political differences with - the Garvey movement or the UNIA. In that vein we also talk about McKay’s theorization of the relationship between class struggle, anticolonial struggle, and anticapitalist revolution. And relatedly his support of movements for Irish nationalism, Indian independence, and Black Nationalism.  James also shares McKay’s experiences as a worker, as a member of the Wobblies or the IWW, and as a member of Sylvia Pankhurst’s Workers Socialist Federation in the UK and some associated discussion of syndicalism and leftwing communism. We close with some reflections on McKay’s attitudes towards Bolshevism over time, especially after Lenin. We really enjoyed Winston James book and highly recommend it to people who are interested in McKay’s life or just in history including debates of the Black left - and communist left - in the early 20th century. You can pick up Winston James' Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik which is currently on sale from our friends at Massive Bookshop. A final reminder as this is likely to be our final episode of this month. October is the 5 year anniversary of Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. We had set a goal of adding 50 patrons this month. And with 2 days left is attainable. We need just 4 more patrons to hit that goal. You can help us hit that goal for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. A new post will be up on patreon about it this week, but our Black Marxism study group will start up in November, and our 5 year anniversary episode is still on its way.

For this conversation we welcome Winston James to the podcast. Winston James is the author of A Fierce Hatred of Injustice: Claude McKay’s Jamaica and His Poetry of Rebellion, The Struggles of John Brown Russwurm: The Life and Writings of a Pan-Africanist Pioneer 1799-1851, and Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twenty Century America. James has held a number of teaching positions, most recently as a professor of history at UC Irvine. James joins us to talk about his latest work, Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik. The book examines McKay’s life from his early years in Jamaica to his years at Tuskegee and Kansas State University and his time in Harlem, to his life in London. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, James offers a rich and detailed chronicle of McKay’s life, political evolution, and the historical, political, and intellectual contexts that shaped him. The work also locates McKay’s closest interlocutors, and those he debated with, as well as McKay’s experiences as a worker and within communist and anarcho-syndicalist organizations like the Worker’s Socialist Federation and the IWW.  In part 1 of the conversation, we focus on McKay’s early years in Jamaica up through the Red Summer of 1919. James begins with a discussion of McKay’s family, his life in Jamaica, his brief stint as a constable in Kingston, his early poetry and his influence on the Negritude movement. James also discusses the appeal of the Russian Revolution and of the Third International to Black people in this era, and contextualizes the terror of white vigilante violence in the post war period in the US and how Black people fought back against it. As a content notice some of this discussion is a brief but explicit examination of the abhorrent character of anti-black violence of the period. We close part 1 of the conversation with a discussion of McKay’s “If We Must Die,” the context of armed self-defense, the context of fighting back, from which it emerged and its global resonance with the emerging Black radicalism of the period and with radical movements decades after its release. In part two - which will come out in the next couple of days - we will focus on McKay’s debates, positions, and activism within the spaces of revolutionary Black Nationalism and the Communist left of the period. We will include a link to the book in the show notes. We both highly recommend it. If you would like to purchase Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik by Winston James consider picking it up from the good folks at Massive Bookshop. As for our current campaign, we have 8 days left this month and we are working towards our goal of adding 50 patrons this month in recognition of 5 years of doing Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. So far this month we have added 34 patrons so if we can add 2 or more patrons daily for the rest of the month we’ll hit that goal. You can join up all the wonderful people who make this show possible by contributing as little as $1 per month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

This is the second part of our two part conversation with Too Black on his piece “Laundering Black Rage”  which you can read over at Black Agenda Report. Too Black is a poet, member of Black Alliance For Peace, host of The Black Myths Podcast which can be found on Black Power Media, he’s a writer, and he is the communications coordinator of the Campaign to Free the Pendleton 2.  Here is part 1 of the conversation. We continue our conversation of “Laundering Black Rage” in this episode. In this part we talk about neocolonialism. We talk about class distinctions and some of the impacts of so-called desegregation, which did not really desegregate US society, but did make certain internal borders more porous to Capital, markets and elites. In that context we have some discussion about struggling against local elites or against elite capture. Too Black also offers some valuable insights on how people have been socialized in this neocolonial era. This conversation also includes about a 25 minute back and forth between Too Black and J about the way Too Black theorizes the state. While not a debate, there is some distinction between the two points of view that we seek to clarify in discussion. Ultimately there is a lot of overlap, but a slightly different conceptualization. We hope folks enjoy listening to us grappling with this theorization together. For an update on our October campaign. October marks the 5 year anniversary of MAKC. We are trying to add 50 patrons this month. 23 new patrons have signed on so far this month, so we’re almost half way to our goal as we reach the halfway point of the month. If we can add two people today we’ll be back on track. You can kick in $1 a month or more and support the sustainability of this show at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism Additional links: The Black Myths Podcast Patreon  Campaign to Free The Pendleton 2 Previous conversation Too Black References from BPM along with Jared Ball, Brooke Terpstra, Erica Caines, Too Black, and Jared    

Our guest for the episode is Too Black. Too Black is a poet, member of Black Alliance For Peace, host of The Black Myths Podcast which can be found on Black Power Media, he’s a writer, and he is one of the organizers of the Campaign to Free the Pendleton 2.  In this conversation we welcome Too Black to discuss his recently published 2 part essay “Laundering Black Rage” (part 1, part 2) which we will link. The essay was published at Black Agenda Report. It’s a provocative analysis of the process through which Black Rage gets laundered towards other ends. The piece looks in particular at this process through the recent example of the 2020 uprisings, but it also looks at other examples. More than just a guest, Too Black is an interlocutor of ours. We’ve worked together on the Journalism For Liberation & Combat series (audio, video). We’ve had conversations about organizing and about theory that go beyond the bounds of podcast work. Due to length we split the conversation in two parts. Part 1 mostly covers the basic themes of the essay and the structure of the process of “Laundering Black Rage,” part two is a little more conversational, but there are conversational elements in both. Most importantly we will include a Link Tree for the campaign to Free the Pendleton 2 in the show notes, please check it out, and if nothing else sign the petitions, but I also encourage you to check out some of their media work, and to see if there’s some way you can get involved or support the campaign. Free The Pendleton 2 Campaign Link Tree. We also encourage you all to check out The Black Myths Podcast, they have some excellent conversations, with many guests you’ll recognize from our platform as well. And support them on patreon as well. Also shout-out to our friends over at Black Power Media who host the Black Myths Podcast videos. Support that work as well. And lastly for an update on our October campaign. October marks the 5 year anniversary of MAKC. We are trying to add 50 patrons this month. Currently we’ve got 22 new patrons for the month, so we’re almost half way to our goal as we approach the half-way point of the month. You can kick in $1 a month or more and support the sustainability of this show at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. Additional notes: In conversation there's a mention of a Kali Akuno video. 

In this episode we interview multiple people who’ve been involved in the struggle to Stop Cop City and Defend the Forest in Atlanta. What started as a political struggle against an extremely unpopular massive new police training facility has morphed and evolved in many different directions. We welcome Kamau Franklin from Community Movement Builders back to the platform for the third time for this conversation. He brings with him several folks with knowledge of the movement to stop cop city and what has become known as the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement. This is a conversation that touches on modes of liberal city governance and counterinsurgency against radical social movements like the uprisings that took place across the country in the summer of 2020 in response to many instances of police violence including the police lynching of George Floyd and in Atlanta specifically the police execution of Rayshard Brooks as well. Kamau along with Sara, Paul and River discuss some of the current political economy of the greater Atlanta metropolitan area and discuss different phases of the struggle to prevent the political approval and physical construction of the massive police training facility. Along the way we also get into conversations about some of the dynamics coalition which is diverse both in terms of political tendencies and traditions, but also in terms of its racial composition. We talk about of some of the tensions and issues that can arise from these circumstances. And there is some discussion of tactics and strategy as well that is specific to this struggle, which warrant broader consideration contingent of course on the conditions of other struggles. You can learn more and support at https://defendtheatlantaforest.org You can also contribute to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund as Sara recommends in the show: https://atlsolidarity.org to support folks who are facing repression and legal cases. And you can learn more and support Community Movement Builders at https://communitymovementbuilders.org. Also in Kamau’s other role, he is a co-host of the Remix Morning Show on Black Power Media, make sure you check them out and support their work as well, this conversation would not have been what it was without Kamau’s support and facilitation. Apologies that due to the number of guests and internet connections some of the audio cuts out at a couple points in the conversation. In all cases it resolves and hopefully minimal meaning and information is lost. But we encourage folks to stick with it even if the audio is a little frustrating in parts because the conversation offers so many important insights. And last but not least, if you like the work that we do here at Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. If you want to hear more conversations about dynamic social movements, revolutionary history, political theory, and tactical and strategic discussion, then join up with the awesome folks who support our show currently by becoming a patron of the show. This October marks the 5th anniversary of doing the show. We’ve hosted over 165 conversations in that period. And for those 5 years we’re looking to add 50 patrons this month to help us sustain this work. 50 is a lot, but you can be one of those folks helping to support by just kicking in a dollar a month or by making a small annual contribution at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.