Racial Terror by the Rules: On Anti-Black Psychic Violence as a Kind of Governmentality

By Zoe Samudzi

One of the most egregious but canonically crucial colonial acts was to make God and Jesus white men. Jesus, in this imagination, is not a brown-skinned Jewish man from Judea (today's Occupied Palestine): he's a fair complected man with reddish or brown hair. The insidiousness of this anglicization of religious iconography far exceeds contemporary instances of whitewashing; for example, Hollywood's miscasting of explicitly non-white characters with white actors. This whitening, which accompanied Christianity's spread through the Global South by colonial missions, represents the elevation of white manhood to the realm of the divine. The wretched colonized masses would not just worship these figures, but whiteness itself. God was not simply a heavenly father, but rather a kind of conceptual precursor to the modern surveillance state in all of its racializing glory: an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent white man whose wrathful streak can and will punish you for your wrongdoing or reward you for properly adhering to his (sometimes contradictory) cosmic rules. White Jesus is a discursive tool, a controlling image within racially governing technologies .

The first chapter of the book of Genesis says God created mankind in his own image. Friedrich Nietzsche famously posed the question of whether Man was one of God's blunders or God was one of Man's. Countless others have argued the function of a Christian God as a projection of the values of Man. Black interrogations have yielded the most useful attempts to understand the nature of what was once called "Man" - and now "humanity - as a projection of colonial idealism. Sylvia Wynter sees the project of "Man" as the coalescence of European Renaissance and Enlightenment values: this Man is an individual, an agent that is free and is capable of rational thought and self-reflection. This idealized Man is immortalized by Leonardo da Vinci's L'Uomo Vitruviano (The Vitruvian Man). Despite being universalizable, its Greco-Roman visual configuration of ideal proportionality, and its rooting in European aesthetics and anatomy undoubtedly racializes it/him. It was a vision of [hu]Man[ity] created in the image and espousing the values of ideal personhood. As Walter D. Mignolo glosses Wynter, this was an articulation "concocted and circulated by those who most convincingly (and powerfully) imagine the 'right' or 'noble' or 'moral' characteristics of Human and in this project their own image-experience of the Human into the sphere of Universal Humanness." The colonial episteme was not generous in its designations of human: the empire, as we know, was contoured by anti-blackness and it codified "Black" not as human, but as private property (Cheryl L. Harris reminds us how race in the United States is not only phenotypical distinction, but also property relation).

Anti-blackness encompasses so many material things that need not be recited here, but one of its most disturbing facets is intangible: our alienation from humanity. White supremacist systems' thriving relies upon this internalization. Imagine white supremacy as partly psychological conditioning. For Dylan Rodríguez, it is a militarized and enforced hierarchy of "human" difference; in Alexander Weheliye's account, an enunciation of assemblages manifested through visualizations of orderings of "humans, not-quite-humans, and nonhumans."

Memed images of anti-Black brutality and violence, both extraordinary in its nature and also painfully commonplace and familiar, compound all other reminders of our sub-humanity. The widespread circulation and consumption of these images is not simply careless social media usage, but a means through which whiteness (anthropomorphized for effect) is able to impose its will beyond classic coercion and the monopoly on the legitimate use of force that it flaunts enthusiastically. The accretion of these images, most importantly, constitutes a normalcy: they remind us of our place and position, they provide a unifying language to (non-Indigenous) non-Black people whose own humanity is built upon anti-blackness. They allow the state to gloat and revel in the impunity it has produced for itself.

What represents absolute power more than reducing adults to panic or tears through a single image? While riding the Muni in San Francisco not long ago, I encountered a white man. I scanned him for patches and tattoos and other hate group-identifying insignia and saw a huge swastika tattoo on his forearm. Recalling the racial stabbing attack by a neo-Nazi on a Portland light rail that left two men dead, I froze. No words were exchanged, I attempted to steady my breath and pretend I wasn't looking at him and I could feel his eyes boring a hole in my head. He got off of the train a couple of stops later, and when I finally got to my own stop, I sobbed and called my mother.

Who can defeat you when you hold the minds of your subjects in a vice? Racial terror, whether undertaken by state or non-state actors (or some collusion between them), is a rule-based necropolitical system. Our fear is a response to violent stimuli and also the means by which the state counts on us to "self-govern": in theory, "proper" self-governance is what assures our survival - respectability politics, not challenging authority (though success and survival are never assured when the state can only produce anti-blackness). The politics recently labeled (though long attacked) by the FBI as "Black Identity Extremism" pose a threat to and is a refusal of this rule-based racial order, and the punishment, historically, has been severe and often fatal.

Our internalization of these enforcements, conscious or otherwise, is present in other corporal ways. Epidemiologists often speak of "predisposition" to illness or pathology: they say that Black risk for diabetes or cardiovascular disease or stroke is genetically determined or somehow innate to the biophysiological Black condition. (On the American medical system, though, Lundy Braun writes about the racist history of the spirometer, which confirmed that whites had superior lung capacities than Blacks. Thomas Jefferson, in his 1785 Notes on the State of Virginia (where he also asserted that male orangutans preferred Black women to the females of their own species), noted the inferiority "pulmonary apparatus" of Blacks, which indicated that their bodies were solely fit for labor and little else; Samuel A. Cartwright, the identifier of drapetomania as mental illness, argued that slavery was beneficial for blacks as it helped their weak lungs to "vitalize" the blood and that "liberates their mind when under the white man's control.")

We know, however, that the experience of racial trauma takes a tremendous toll on human functioning, not to mention how structurally delineated racial geographies can heavily predetermine life expectancy, class, and resource access. In 2016, Venida Browder arguably died of a broken heart 16 months after her son Kalief hanged himself following his undoubtedly traumatic incarceration at Rikers Island - the stress of multiple lawsuits against the city of New York compounded by the unbearable grief. On December 30, 2017, Erica Garner-Snipes, the daughter of Eric Garner and outspoken activist in her own right, died of a massive heart attack at age 27: we were reminded, again, the toll these traumas take on Black women.

The aggregate effect of constant exposure to racism, among many other things, can result in a kind of race-based post-traumatic stress disorder. Trauma is not simply a single event, but a culmination of seemingly insignificant ones (including things referred to as microaggressions) that comprise the normal landscape of our Black lives. One might characterize many experiences of blackness like the positive and negative reinforcements necessary to heel an animal or silence a petulant child. Our mythical reward is proximity to whiteness (i.e. both humanity and/or material reward vis-à-vis the American Dream); your punishments range from more subtle alienation or humiliation, physical violence, confinement, death. Most of us are intimately familiar with this function of the system.

In the early hours of 2018, a few friends and I walked through Oakland to a New Years gathering. Seeing flashing lights, we knew the party had likely been shut down due to "noise complaints," and after confirming that, we turned to leave of our own volition. As we were leaving, three Oakland Police Department officers shepherded us off the street tapping their sidearms, the rhythm resembling a kind of racist Morse code only discernible to us well-trained Black subjects. My indignation turned into familiar terror quite quickly. I remembered a recent study that found a correlation between long police shifts and an increased likelihood of targeting and shooting Black people; I remembered that Oscar Grant was murdered by Johannes Mehserle, a BART Police officer, around that same time 9 years prior. The repetitive sound tapped into a primal fear of my own, and it reminded me of the rules to which I was beholden and upon which my Black life often depends.

What, then, demarcates this uneasy boundary between coping and capitulation? Between a complicity through compliance and the refusal of needless martyrdom? Frantz Fanon described blackness as a product of "a series of affective disorders" from which we must collectively extricate ourselves. But how? What does it mean to individually or even collectively de-shackle ourselves within a system predicated upon our victimization? A system that sustains itself with a carceral logic that demands we understand ourselves as criminal and deviant, and which ensures our humanity is won by convincingly demonstrating otherwise? We can cope, we can subvert, we can create liberatory epistemologies that refuse the subjugated position we are forced into. But it is not until racial capitalism and all of its various iterations are destroyed that we can be free of these conditionings and psychic violations.

This piece was originally published at Verso's blog

Zoé Samudzi is a Black feminist writer and doctoral student in Medical Sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. She is co-author, with William C. Anderson, of As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation , forthcoming from AK Press.

Bury Me Not in a Land of Slaves: A Short History of Immediatist Abolitionism in Philadelphia, 1830s to 1860s

By Arturo Castillon (Edited by Madeleine Salvatore)

[The above image is a depiction of the 1851 Christiana Riot, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where a slave-owner was shot and killed when attempting to retrieve an alleged "fugitive slave." The subsequent trial took place in Philadelphia.]

I ask no monuments, proud and high,

To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;

All that my yearning spirit craves,

Is bury me not in a land of slaves.

-Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, "Bury Me in a Free Land"

In the 1850s, the author of the above poem, Frances Harper, was part of a network of revolutionaries who made it their mission to abolish slavery in the United States. Known as Abolitionists, these partisans of freedom fought for the immediate emancipation of slaves, and developed a specific approach to Abolitionism known as "immediatism." [1] In the 1820s, the most radical Abolitionists in England and the United States began using this term, "immediatism," to distinguish their strategy for abolition from the predominant, gradualist one. [2]

The Abolitionists that we are most familiar with today - Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown - all fought for the immediate emancipation of slaves, a prospect that most people at the time, even most abolitionists, considered extreme and impractical. Yet in the long term, the immediatist tendency proved to be the most practical and strategic. Instead of miring themselves in legislative strategies or insular sects, the immediatists built organizations to secretly assist thousands of people fleeing from slavery, who in taking the risk of freedom, deprived the southern planters of their primary source of labor-slave labor.

In Philadelphia, black abolitionists like Frances Harper, William Still, and Robert Purvis would rise to the forefront of the immediatist struggle against slavery. Because of the city's proximity to the South, it was an important junction point on the Underground Railroad, a secret network of routes and safe houses that people followed northward when fleeing from slavery. Undeterred by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which legally guaranteed a slaveholder's right to recover an escaped slave, hundreds of escapees made their way to Philadelphia every year, most coming from nearby Virginia and Maryland. With the Compromise of 1850, the Southern slaveholders strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act, which now required the governments and citizens of free states, like Pennsylvania, to enforce the capture and return of "fugitive slaves." This compromise between the Southern slaveholders and the Northern free states defused a four-year political crisis over the status of territories colonized during the Mexican-American war (1846-1848). For the immediatist wing of the Abolitionist movement in Philadelphia, the implications of the new Fugitive Slave Law were clear: it had to be disobeyed and disrupted, even if that meant engaging in illegal activities to assist fugitives.[3]

Already by the early 1830s, the Abolitionist movement in Pennsylvania had begun to radicalize, reflecting developments on the national scene, such as David Walker's 1829 Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, and the 1831 Nat Turner slave insurrection. The older, mostly white Quakers, who had led the movement for decades, favored legal, non-violent measures for gradually abolishing slavery, while a growing tendency of mostly black abolitionists demanded the immediate abolition of slavery. [4] This growing dichotomy, between the gradualists and the immediatists, reflected the essential difference between reformist and revolutionary politics in the Abolitionist movement.

As the Abolitionist movement became more immediatist in the 1830s, the Vigilance Committee, as it came to be known, emerged as the principal organizational form for assisting fugitives as well as victims of kidnapping. After black Abolitionist David Ruggles founded the first Vigilance Committee in New York City in 1835, Robert Purvis and James Forten formed the "Vigilant Association of Philadelphia" in 1837. Abolitionists in the rural counties surrounding these cities soon followed suit, becoming part of a regional network between Philadelphia, New York City, and other nearby cities, like Boston. The Vigilance Committees raised money, provided transportation, food, housing, clothing, medical care, legal counsel, and tactical support for people escaping from slavery. [5]

The committee in Philadelphia was a racially integrated group that also included a (predominantly black) women's auxiliary unit, the "Female Vigilant Association." This degree of inter-racial and inter-gender organization was unheard of at the time, even in the Abolitionist movement. [6] The committee also included ex-slaves. Amy Hester Reckless, for example, was a fugitive who went on to become a leading member of the committee in the 1840s. [7]

While providing strategic resources to fugitives, the committee also carried out bold interventions. Members of the committee orchestrated two of the most notorious slave escapes of the 1840s: 1) that of William and Ellen Craft from Georgia, who used improbable disguises to make their way to Philadelphia in 1848, and 2) that of Henry "Box" Brown from Virginia, who arranged to have himself mailed in a wooden crate to Philadelphia in 1849. These daring escapes were widely publicized in the antislavery movement, and these fugitives appeared in public lectures in order to rally support to the Abolitionist cause. [8]

However, by the early 1850s, several waves of repression had left the committee disorganized. These included anti-abolitionist riots, and a string of crippling lawsuits against those who defied the Fugitive Slave Law, including participants in the Christiana Riot of 1851, wherein a slave-owner was shot and killed after attempting to capture a "fugitive." A new organization was needed, so in 1852 William Still and other abolitionists established a new Vigilance Committee to fill the void left by the older, scattered one. [9]

Led by William Still, who had escaped from slavery as a child with his mother, the new Vigilance Committee was even more effective than its predecessor, assisting hundreds of fugitives every year in their quests for freedom. By the mid-1850s, Still and the immediatists had transformed Philadelphia into a crucial nerve center of the Underground Railroad, by then a massive network that spanned the U.S. and extended into Canada. The most prominent "conductors" of the Underground Railroad, people like Harriet Tubman and Thomas Garrett, directed hundreds of fugitives to the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee every year. [10]

Although the original Vigilance Committee was a clandestine organization, its reincarnation operated both publicly and in secret. Some of the members of the committee were lawyers who defended fugitives in the Pennsylvania courts, while others assisted fugitives using methods that were unequivocally prohibited by those same courts. Some even published their names and addresses in the Pennsylvania Freeman newspaper and in flyers so that fugitives could easily find them. In order to generate public support for their cause, they used the antislavery press and public lecture circuit to broadcast the success of their illegal activities-without revealing specific incriminating details and only after the fugitives were safe. Carefully documenting the daily operations of the committee, William Still wrote extensively about the hidden stories of slave resistance and the inner workings of their secret network. When he finally published The Underground Railroad Records in 1872, it would be the first historical account of the Underground Railroad. [11]

This delicate balance between secret operations and public activity was dramatically demonstrated in the summer of 1855, when William Still and others organized the escape of Jane Johnson and her children from their owner, John Wheeler, as they were en route to New York, docked in Philadelphia. During the escape, Passmore Williamson, one of the only white members of the Vigilance Committee, physically held back Wheeler, a well-known southern Congressman, while Still led Johnson and her children away to a nearby safe house. [12]

In the legal proceedings that ensued, a federal judge charged Williamson with riot, forcible abduction, and assault. The judge in the case rejected an affidavit from Johnson affirming that she had left Wheeler of her own free will and that there had been no abduction, and Williamson spent 100 days in Moyamensing prison. The case became a national news story, as Abolitionists used the media to trumpet the success of the Johnson rescue, and to expose the southern slaveholders' domination of the federal court system, which the Abolitionists called a "Slave Power Conspiracy." Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and other Abolitionist leaders visited Williamson during his confinement and wrote admirably of his actions in the antislavery press. [13]

The Philadelphia immediatists were fully aware of their strategic role in the national struggle against slavery. At a mass meeting in Philadelphia in August 1860, leader of the immediatist wing, William Still, explained that because they were "in such close proximity to slavery" and their "movements and actions" were "daily watched" by pro-slavery forces, they could do, "by wise and determined effort, what the freed colored people of no other State could possibly do to weaken slavery." [14] By defying the Fugitive Slave Law in a border city, the immediatists in Philadelphia exacerbated the growing conflict between the free states of the North and the slave states of the South to a degree that few other Abolitionists could.

The Vigilance Committee acted as the organizational nucleus of the Underground Railroad in a city that was publicly very hostile to Abolitionism. Most white workers were opposed to the abolition of slavery as well as the legalization of racial equality, while the merchant elites and early industrialists of the city had close economic ties to slaveholders in the South and throughout the Atlantic. There where numerous anti-black and anti-abolitionists riots throughout the 1830s and 1840s in Philadelphia. [15] Even though they were vastly outnumbered, by subverting the Fugitive Slave Law in this border city, the immediatists antagonized the slaveholders and their allies-a much larger and well-established enemy.

As the overall antislavery movement continued to grow throughout the North, the southern slaveholders went on the defensive. With the John Brown attack at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, and the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln, who campaigned against the expansion of slavery, the slaveholders in the South became more entrenched and alienated from the rest of the United States. In February 1861 the Lower South region of the U.S seceded, creating a separate country called the Confederate States of America, also known as the Confederacy. The U.S. national government, known as the Union, refused to recognize the Confederacy as a legal government. The Civil War officially began in April 1861, when Confederate soldiers attacked Fort Sumter, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. As the Civil War took its course, Abolitionists from Philadelphia, like Octavius Catto, worked to radicalize the Unionist cause from within. Catto and other Abolitionists organized the enlistment of black troops into the Union army and advocated for a coordinated military assault on slavery in the South, for which they were strongly condemned by white Philadelphians. [16]

Before the war, and during its initial years, much of white Philadelphia was sympathetic to the Southern slaveholder's grievances. But with the deepening of the conflict between North and South, most Philadelphians came to support the Union and the war against the Confederacy. A turning point came in 1863 when the city was threatened with Confederate occupation. Entrenchments were built and people fought to defend the city, defeating the Confederate Army at the Battle of Gettysburg. [17] However, even with the shifting of opinion against the South, most white Philadelphians still believed that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. Many white Americans continued to believe that the Civil War was a "white man's war" to preserve the Union and nothing more. Abolitionists and black Philadelphians continued to be the targets of mob violence, and some white Philadelphians even blamed the Abolitionists for the war. [18]

With all odds stacked against them, the Abolitionists proclaimed the need to end slavery from the very beginning and identified the structural contradictions that would tear the nation apart. But rather than wait for the gradual disintegration of slavery, the immediatists worked to hasten its destruction. In a society that was for the most part hostile to their cause, the immediatist wing of the abolitionist movement performed the historic duty of following through, with long-term consistency, those revolutionary tactics that alone could save the Union and drive the Civil War to a decisive conclusion. More and more slaves escaping from plantations, the enlistment of black troops into the Union army, the immediate emancipation of slaves throughout the South-these tactics were indeed the only ways out of the difficulties into which the Civil War had descended.

The Civil War stemmed from a breakdown of the structural compromise that developed between two distinct modes of production-northern industrial wage labor, and southern slave labor. The growth and radicalization of the antislavery movement over time made this "unholy alliance" impossible to maintain. In this, the Civil War confirmed the basic lesson of every revolution, which stands the logic of gradualism on its head. Revolution doesn't advance with small increments, with legislative preconditions, but with prompt, uncompromising actions that destabilize the structural limits of the existing system.

The will for revolution can only be satisfied in this way-with strategic, revolutionary activity. Yet the masses of people can only acquire and strengthen the will for revolution in the course of the day-to-day struggle against the existing class order-in other words, within the limits of the existing system. Thus, we run into a contradiction. On the one hand, we have the masses of people in their everyday struggles within a social system; on the other, we have the goal of immediate social revolution, located outside of the existing system. Such are the paradoxical terms of the historical dialectic through which any revolutionary movement makes its way. The immediatists transcended this contradiction by responding to the mass self-activity of the slaves, who in their day-to-day resistance to the slave system offered the Abolitionists a means to realize their revolutionary objectives.

For over three decades, through ebbs and flows, victories and defeats, the immediatists consistently engaged with the everyday struggles of the slave class. They constructed multi-racial, multi-gender organizations that operated both legally and illegally, publicly and secretly, in order to help people emancipate themselves from slavery, to help them stay free, and to help them gain basic legal rights. In doing so, they fostered the development of a revolutionary movement that precipitated the U.S. Civil War and culminated in one of the greatest social revolutions of world history-the emancipation and enfranchisement of millions of slaves and workers in the South during the Reconstruction Era.

By the end of the Civil War, a once-persecuted minority of fanatical Abolitionists were now national leaders. Today we see them as good-hearted activists, or even as moderates. But there should be no mistake about it-all Abolitionists were considered extremists prior to the Civil War, and during most of it. Few people believed that the slave system would fall. The Abolitionists certainly did not believe their revolutionary goal would one day become official government policy. In the end, the Abolitionists recognized the historical crisis in front of them for what it was, and the immediatists responded to it better than any other Abolitionist tendency of their time.

"Lines," Frances Ellen Watkins Harper:

Though her cheek was pale and anxious,

Yet, with look and brow sublime,

By the pale and trembling Future

Stood the Crisis of our time.

And from many a throbbing bosom

Came the words in fear and gloom,

Tell us, Oh! thou coming Crisis,

What shall be our country's doom?

Shall the wings of dark destruction

Brood and hover o'er our land,

Till we trace the steps of ruin

By their blight, from strand to strand?

Arturo Castillon is an independent historian and retail-service worker from Philadelphia, who has participated in movements and struggles against gentrification, police violence, sexual harassment, homophobia, workplace exploitation, and racism.

This article was previously published on the blog of the Tubman-Brown Organization .

Notes

[1] On Harper's and others contributions to the abolitionist movement in Philadelphia, see Still, Underground Rail Road, 740-61; Helens Campbell, "Philadelphia Abolitionists ," The Continent; an Illustrated Weekly Magazine, January 3, 1883, 1-6.

[2] Junius P. Rodriguez, "Immediatism," The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, Volume 1; A-K (Santa Barbara, California, 1997), 364.

[3] On the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, see Fergus M. Bordenwich, Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement (New York, 2005), 49; Carol Wilson, "Philadelphia and the Origins of the Underground Railroad," unpublished essay on file in the archives at Independence National Historic Park, Philadelphia.

[4] On the radicalization of the antislavery movement in Pennsylvania, see Richard S. Newman, The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2002), chapter 3.

[5] Beverly C. Tomek, "Vigilance Committees," http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/vigilance-committees/

[6] Ibid, Tomek.

[7] Joseph A. Borome, "The Vigilant Committee of Philadelphia," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 92 (January 1968); 320-51.

[8] Elizabeth Varon, " 'Beautiful Providences': William Still, the Vigilance Committee, and Abolitionists in the Age of Sectionalism" Antislavery and Abolition in Philadelphia, 230-31.

[9] Ibid, Varon; Borome, "The Vigilant Committee of Philadelphia," 320-51.

[10] James A. McGowan, Station Master on the Underground Railroad: the Life and Letters of Thomas Garret (Jefferson, N.C, 2005); Kate Clifford Larson, Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero (New York, 2004), 122-25.

[11] Varon, "'Beautiful Providences'" Antislavery and Abolition in Philadelphia, 233- 34.

[12] For a detailed account of the Jane Johnson rescue and its impactions, see Nat Brandt and Yanna Koyt Brandt, In the Shadow of the Civil War: Passmore Williamson and the Rescue of Jane Jane Johnson (Columbia, South Carolina, 2007).

[13] Ibid, Brandt.

[14] National Anti-Slavery Standard , August 18, 1860.

[15] Russel F. Weigley, "The Border City in Civil War, 1854-1865" Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, (New York and London, 1982), 295-296.

[16] Donald Scott, "Camp William Penn's Black Soldiers in Blue-November '99 America's Civil War Feature" http://www.historynet.com/camp-william-penns-black-soldiers-in-blue-november-99-americas-civil-war-feature.htm .

[17] Ibid, Scott, 389-93.

[18] Ibid, Scott.

How Liberals Depoliticize White Supremacy

By Amir Khafagy

It could be argued that this past year was the year that the term "white supremacy" has gone mainstream. Everybody and their mother is talking about fighting or resisting white supremacy. White leftists are usually the ones who are seemingly throwing themselves on the front lines. They also come across as the most eager to smash white supremacy, ultimately overshadowing the ones who are directly oppressed by it. Since the arrival of Trump, liberals have joined the fray, focusing much of their anger on the man himself.

So, let me be real about this and come out and say that it bothers me. For the longest time I couldn't really articulate it but in my gut something just didn't feel right. The term "white supremacy" has never been a popular colloquial term, nor has it ever been even truly acknowledged by white America as a very real reality for most black Americans. If white supremacy was ever discussed, it was generally talked about in its isolated fringe form and relegated to annals of day-time talk shows.

Throughout the 90s I would remember the times I stayed home from school and watched sensationalist shows such as Jerry Springer or Geraldo Rivera when they would bring on neo-Nazis and Klan members to generate easy ratings. Geraldo even got his nose broken during one episode, when a Klan member threw a chair at his face. For the majority of white liberal Americans of the post-civil rights era, white supremacy has been viewed in the context as a mere relic of history only maintained by isolated, fringe, far-right groups. White supremacy was viewed as a part of history, not as existing in the present or lingering into the future.

Only with the rise of Trump have we begun to have mainstream discussions about the role white supremacy plays in our society. And that's great! We need to be having that discussion. Yet what has been lacking from that conversation is the systematic nature of white supremacy and how it's directly tied to capitalism. Liberals who claim to be part of the "resistance" are acting as if Trump has opened a long, dormant Pandora's Box of hatred, xenophobia, and white supremacy. The "resistance" accuses the current head of the American empire of being a white supremacist fascist, without ever questioning whether or not the American empire is inherently white supremacist in nature.

Much of the focus coming from liberal camps has been on the symbolism of what Trump the individual represents, and not on the material reality of what America represents. With this approach, the horror of white supremacy is ultimately stripped of its historical and current roll in supporting capitalism and empire. It becomes diluted when liberals only see white supremacy through the prism of individualistic, interpersonal relations.

Privilege politics is a manifestation of individualizing white supremacy. If "radical" means "grasping things at the root," like Angela Davis once said, then this myopic approach taken under the banner of privilege politics is the opposite of radical. It is superficial. Rather than recognizing and struggling against the structural forces that create white privilege in the first place, we are instead expected to politely ask that white people somehow give up their privileges; or, at very least, recognize that they have privilege.

It should be obvious to anyone that this approach makes little sense because it forces us to depend on white people to enact symbolic change while we surrender what little power we have in the first place to make fundamental change. Privilege politics also assumes that white supremacy in our society is result of individualistic patterns and behaviors - that is an outlier, not a norm. In reality, people's patterns and behaviors reflect the political and economic conditions of society. Systems don't change because people change, people change because systems change. All of this amounts to the depoliticizing of white supremacy, and it's preventing us from fully understanding that America's foreign, domestic, and economic policy is essentially white supremacy in action, and always has been.

For an example of what the depoliticization of white supremacy looks like, we can assess the reaction to the recent debate between Dr. Cornel West and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. In an article he penned for the Guardian, Dr. West put it bluntly and accused Coates of being "the neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle." West went on to say that "any analysis or vision of our world that omits the centrality of Wall Street power, US military policies, and the complex dynamics of class, gender, and sexuality in black America is too narrow and dangerously misleading." He then adds his most powerful indictment by saying "In short, Coates fetishizes white supremacy. He makes it almighty, magical, and unremovable."

In looking past the controversy and fanfare sparked from his article, we can see that West's words and message are crucial. He accurately theorizes that any discussion which removes structural white supremacy from its central role in upholding America's capitalist empire will inadvertently end up reinforcing white supremacy. However, instead of seeing West's critique of Coates as a valid insight on the state of the black liberation struggle, most folks chose to frame the debate as some sort of personal beef between the two most prominent black intellectuals in the country, resembling some sort of Hip-Hop celebrity feud.

Detractors of West, such as Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, have even gone on accusing West of "throwing shade" because he's somehow jealous of Coates' success, echoing the same responses given to West's vital critiques of Obama. As if West's criticisms were based on piety narcissism rather than grounded in a legitimate concern for the fate of black America. It's just plain dismissive to reject what West has to say without fully analyzing the points he was trying to make. Borrowing West's own logic, the reactions are indicative of a neoliberal culture that is insistent on removing all traces of critical thinking which challenge the orthodoxy of privilege politics.

Critics of West have completely ignored his points, choosing instead to denounce him as a "washed-up, bitter, old man." An important message has been lost in the winds of this drama. West was trying to make us understand that white supremacy is embedded into every fabric of American life and society. It is not relegated to fringe groups or individuals like Trump, and it is not some mystic force that is indestructible. He wants us to understand that the responsibility to make change is not held by those who have privilege. It's not for them to kindly give up their privilege or come to terms with it; rather, it is our responsibility to struggle against this unjust system that creates such unearned privileges.

Only when we are able to see that the fights against white supremacy and capitalism are interconnected struggles (two sides of the same oppressive coin) is when we will finally be able to make real progress towards liberation. The gatekeepers of neoliberalism come in many forms. West was handing us a key.

Amir Khafagy is a self-described "Arab-Rican" New Yorker. He is well known as a political activist, journalist, writer, performer, and spoken word artist. Amir is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Urban Affairs at Queens College. He can be reached at amirkhafagy@gmail.com

Decolonizing Zwarte Piet

By Darryl Barthe

When I arrived in the Netherlands in March of 2016, I was forewarned by a number of colleagues and friends that the Dutch tradition of Zwarte Piet would challenge me. I'd seen the images of Dutchmen in blackface handing out candy while dressed as Harlequins, but I honestly had no idea how it would affect me until my daughter came home from school with a little "golliwog" figure that she had colored that day as a part of Sinterklaas festivities. I'd heard the arguments from Prime Minister Mark Rutte's people: this is a "normal" expression of Dutch culture. I'd also heard the arguments from Geert Wilder's people (who really didn't sound so different from Rutte's people, in this regard): anyone who has a problem with this part of Dutch culture should get out of the Netherlands. [1]

I like haring. I like being able to ride a bike everywhere. I like the fact that cannabis is decriminalized and that prostitutes are organized into labor unions. However, I do not like racist caricatures of African people that inspire my neighbor from Djibouti to keep her child home from school rather than allow him to be subjected to cartoonish representations of black people as brutish, goofy, slaves. This dilemma inspired me to look to the origins of Zwarte Piet to interrogate this narrative of golliwogs being integral to some Dutch people's sense of national identity.

The connections between the Germanic god of Magic, War and Rulership, known variously as "Woten," "Woden," and "Odin," and "St. Nicholas," "Father Christmas," "Sinterklaas," and "Santa Clause" are convincingly documented by a number of scholars. The figure of "Sleipnir," Odin's 8-legged horse, is re-imagined in the English poem "The Night Before Christmas," as "eight tiny reindeer," for example. The All-father's habit of visiting unsuspecting families and testing their hospitality is the reason that American children leave Santa milk and cookies ("koekjes," being the original Dutch word; what Americans call "cookies" are called "biscuits" in the UK) and why Dutch children leave hay or carrots for Sinterklaas' horse. It is ironic that this tradition, grounded in a belief in the transcendent, moral, value of hospitality, should be expressed in blackface, a mode of drama and comedy steeped in a history of racist dehumanization and exploitation.

In the case of the "naughty" children -those who do not show the All-father hospitality-there are a number of re-interpretations of the Old Norse myth which involved Odin, in some way, cursing the offenders. All involve some reinterpretation of the mythical "svartalfar," or "dark elves," who controlled all the minerals under the mountains. So, good children get gold while bad children get coal; good children get presents while bad children get abducted by the dark elves in a manner suggested by the German Christmas tradition of "Krampus," and the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. In the Santa Claus tradition, the svartalfar have been reimagined as "Santa's elves" who leave children lumps of coal in their stockings if they are naughty, as opposed to treats.

The present tradition of Zwarte Piet can be directly traced to the middle of the 19th-century, and a children's book written by Jan Schenkman,Sint Nikolaas en Zijn Knecht ( Saint Nicholas and his Servant). The myths of the svartalfar were submerged in a colonial narrative of servile (yet simultaneously violent and cruel) "Moors" (or, alternatively, "Spaniards") accompanying the aging (white) patriarch, Sinterklaas, to Holland. When Netherlanders don their blackface and pantaloons, the pre-Christian significance of that imagery -a significance that speaks to an older, pre-Romanized, sense of "Dutchness"-is, for the most part, lost on them. What is confounding, however, is the extent to which the racist, colonial, White Supremacist, significance of that imagery is also lost on many Netherlanders, as well.

Dutch identity, today, is only vaguely related to the Batavians, the ancient Germanic tribe that lived at the Rhine Delta during the 1 st Century CE. Even less so is contemporary Dutch identity related to the Chatti, an ancient Germanic tribe of Lower Saxony and Hesse, from whom the Batavians supposedly descended. Rather, contemporary Dutch identity is most often articulated as the collective social and cultural inheritance of 17th century merchant seamen, who traded mostly in spices and flowers.

There is a vague notion that the Dutch played some role in the slave trade, but only rarely is this fact seriously interrogated in the Netherlands where, according to University of Amsterdam Professor Gloria Wekker, "fear and avoidance of the axis of race/ethnicity are dominant" in academic discourses.[2] The Dutch embrace a view of themselves as a tolerant, anti-racist, people despite the glaring, obvious, historical silences surrounding the brutality of Dutch colonialism, the underlying ideology of racism and White Supremacy that fueled that colonial program, and the lingering effects that that history has had on the Dutch people (and, perhaps more to the point, Dutch people of African descent). My Dutch students often recoil in horror and righteous indignation when I relate the bloody, gory, history of racism and lynching in the US; this is in contrast to the looks of surprise and confusion that I get when I tell those same students that the first enslaved Africans brought to the English colonies in North America were brought there by Dutch sailors.

Every year the Dutch legacy of colonialism (and the attendant white Supremacy that justified the Dutch colonial program) is articulated through the "innocent tradition" of Dutch people donning costumes portraying buffoonish images of fat-lipped, Afro-wearing, golliwogs, prancing about goofily, handing out candy. To suggest that this display accomplishes the racist dehumanization of black people can often invite defensiveness from Dutch people who are genuinely horrified at the thought that anyone would ever call them racist. Many Netherlanders - fair-minded, reasonable people, committed to notions of equality and ideologically opposed to racism and prejudicial discrimination-will admit in candid moments that they honestly cannot understand what it is about Zwarte Piet that is so offensive to black people.

The best among the Dutch are willing to allow space for Black people in the Netherlands to explain it to them. Since 2013, there has been a growing movement to discontinue the portrayal of Zwarte Piet. In 2014, the city of Amsterdam decided to discontinue the blackface tradition. In 2015, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urged the Netherlands to confront the problem of this national celebration of racist stereotypes, a suggestion the Dutch government took under advisement. Not all Netherlanders are so reasonable, however.

A few weeks ago, pro Zwarte Piet demonstrators blocked a highway, preventing antiracist activists from marching on the city of Dokkum where "traditional" Zwarte Piet celebrations were commencing. Mark Rutte's response to the (illegal blockade) protest was to suggest that children should not be forced to deal with angry Zwarte Piet demonstrators when they were simply out for a little Christmas fun: "Sinterklaas is een mooie traditie, een kinderfeest. Dus laten we met elkaar een beetje normaal doen" ("Sinterklaas is a beautiful tradition, a children's holiday party. So, let's all get together and be a little normal"). [3]

I am certain that Mark Rutte was unaware of the deep irony in his suggestion that racist theater represented Dutch "normality." For the most part, the sort of active, aggressive, racial hatred that exists in colonial contexts (like the US, for example,) does not exist in the Netherlands. At the same time, the racism of the Dutch colonial program was always buttressed by a principle of "white normativity" which posited only white people as people, and which recognized the humanity of non-white people only to the extent that those non-white people resembled (and internalized the value systems of) white people. That principle of white normativity -a passive, unaggressive, racism which even allows for individual kindness and intimacy, including the legendary "black friend," or even the occasional black spouse- defines the parameters of the discourse on race in the Netherlands and that will not change until the Dutch start honestly confronting their own history of racism and colonial violence, and not until the vantages of people of color in the Netherlands are properly integrated into Dutch notions of "normaal."

Notes

[1] See Mark Rutte, "Lees hier de brief van Mark," (VVD.nl, 22 January 2017) https://www.vvd.nl/nieuws/lees-hier-de-brief-van-mark/ (accessed December 23, 2017). See also Ben Winsor, "Wilders prepares law to protect 'Zwarte Piet' holiday blackface," ( SBS.com.au, February 16, 2017) https://www.sbs.com.au/news/wilders-prepares-law-to-protect-zwarte-piet-holiday-blackface (accessed December 23, 2017).

[2] Gloria Wekker, White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 52.

[3] "Zwarte Piet supporters close motorway to stop demo as Sinterklass arrives" (DutchNews.nl, November 18, 2017), http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/11/zwarte-piet-supporters-close-motorway-to-stop-demo-as-sinterklaas-arrives-in-dokkum/ (accessed December 23, 2017); "Premier Rutte over Zwarte Piet-discussie: 'Laten we een beetje normaal doen'" ( rtvnoord.nl, November 18, 2017), https://www.rtvnoord.nl/nieuws/186365/Premier-Rutte-over-Zwarte-Piet-discussie-Laten-we-een-beetje-normaal-doen (accessed December 23, 2017).

Hashtag Me Two: Reflections on Women's Solidarity

By Michelle Black Smith

When Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano tweeted #MeToo in solidarity with the all too many women who have been subjected to sexual assault and harassment, she started a firestorm, but not a movement. That distinction belongs to Tarana Burke, founder of the nonprofit Just Be Inc., an organization devoted to the "health, well being and wholeness of young women of color everywhere." Burke created the Me Too movement in 2006 after listening to young women speak of their experiences with sexual abuse. Burke, who has remained active in the fight for women's health and justice, raised the antennae of numerous women of color. Much to the chagrin of some, Burke was largely unacknowledged by many notable white feminists.

Burke's niche popularity and subsequent rise to prominence following research into the origins of the hashtag MeToo bring to the forefront a troubling but persistent state of being for white and black women in the struggle: how the former can be entirely committed to the equality of all women, and the latter become trustful of a group with members who have practiced betrayal in every movement central to the freedom of women, from the suffrage movement to women's rights to women's rights redux in 2016. This tension, existent since African girls and women arrived on American shores, shape shifts, becoming more or less easy to grasp with each decade but never abates. #MeToo is a powerful and galvanizing tool in the chest of women who wield it to assert voice while feeling support and safety in numbers. For her part, Burke has supported the hashtag with her own tweets. Yet, the movement Me Too, the #MeToo, and Burke's reaction to it leapfrog us backward in time to the mid-1800s when Sojourner Truth stood before a large conference of white women to assert her pain, her struggle, her femininity before a feminist gathering that recognized oppression through a narrow, exclusionary gaze. The "Ain't I a Woman" declaration by Truth has come under skepticism in recent years as histories of her direct quote and reaction to it at the 1851 Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio differ. What is certain: the "Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?" motto dates back to the British abolitionist movement of the 1820s, and the American abolitionist movement of the 1830s. Sojourner Truth, as her surname suggests, was in fact calling for a political landscape in which white men acknowledged the equality of black people and all women, and surrendered to the inevitability of power sharing. Fast forward to the present and Truth might be surprised to learn that the basic tenets of the struggle have not changed. White men and women are still fighting over power between themselves while black women are positioned in the middle, still having to determine who is an ally while carving out their own spheres of power and protecting their flanks.

The position of black women located between and behind white women and men is historical fact and contemporaneously significant. From the first wave of Africans landing on America's shores to the legal end of slavery in 1865, black girls and women were routinely caught between two brutal masters - the white men who owned and raped them, and the white women who commanded and resented them. There are documented examples of emotionally and spiritually mature white women who saw the enslaved woman's status as a moral dilemma if not a legal crime. Those legally free women sought to protect their sisters in bondage within their realms of power, their ability ranging from meager to substantial. That protection could take the form of bringing the enslaved woman from the fields to the big house, negotiating terms for the woman to grow special food or make extra clothes, or teaching her children - often the mistresses de facto step-children - how to read. More often, the enslaved girl or woman was seen as the "mistress," the adulterous female stealing affection and corrupting the slave master. Moreover, the enslaved woman was often a surrogate - the proxy sexual partner who relieved the slave master's spouse of her "wifely duties."

So, it is against this historical backdrop that I begin to examine my own unease with #MeToo, the hashtag and the movement. My black woman's cellular memory is wary, concerned that a repeat scenario of Sojourner Truth's experience in Akron is eminent. And it is. Witness the statistical majority of white women who voted for Donald Trump. While ninety-four per cent of black women voted for the over 60, flawed but unarguably qualified white woman, fifty-three per cent of white women voted to elect the over 70, sexually aggressive, "pussy-grabbing" unproven and underqualified man to the most powerful political office in the country. If white women cannot in a majority vote in their best interest, where does that place black women and other women of color in an ostensibly inclusive feminist struggle?

Simultaneously and increasingly, I am made uneasy by the number of complaints against prominent men concerning their sexually aggressive behaviors ranging from harassment to criminal assault. Are the accusations reported in the media indicative of actions by powerful men limited to certain professions, or are these pervasive behaviors that go largely unreported or unaddressed in spaces not commonly held in the public eye? Will the volume of complaints begin to desensitize a society to the grievances of wronged women? Will society become desensitized to the point of discouraging women from speaking out, thus victimizing the very population that deserves justice for the violence done to them? The feminist in me rejects any inclination to discount the legions of women who have come forward in the wake of the first Harvey Weinstein allegations, arguably the opening of the floodgate. My concern for humanity wants to place a protective arm around every niece, sister or girlfriend's daughter who might be a victim of the abhorrent and/or criminal behaviors named. The black activist in me struggles to understand how Bill Cosby is more dangerous and newsworthy than Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes. The womanist in me can't comprehend how so many of my white sisters could practice such an obvious act of self-hatred and sacrifice of self-interest that the result is a 21st century America that feels as perilous to me in my time as my grandmother must have felt in hers, as Sojourner Truth must have felt in hers. To be sure, Ms. Truth's life had none of the choices, freedoms or protections that I enjoy in mine. However, fear, like power, is both relative and real.

So, this January 20, 2018, I contemplate with apprehension whether to participate in the second national Women's March. Proximity is not an issue - I am an hour away from New York City. My late mother, a smart, progressive, self-loving and self-respecting black woman, was born on January 20th - I could march in honor of her. Or would she consider my marching honorable? A part of me thinks staying home will honor her as well. But, to stand in truth, and to stand with Truth is, for this black woman, the opportunity to wield my power, claim possession over my body, celebrate the black female aesthetic, and resist the simultaneous over-sexualizing and de-sexualizing of the black feminine form.

Let me be clear, I am not marching for the self-loathing, naval-gazing women who voted against their self-interests and mine. However, I will march for their offspring. If I march, I put foot to pavement to honor my mother and all the Sojourners of this world. I will march in support of the girls and young women and the vulnerable women who do not (yet) share my fully realized place in this world. I will march with the same pride I felt watching women of all colors, self-identifiers, cultural, ideological and faith backgrounds organize, lead and participate in the march of January 2017. I will not, however, accept the number two spot in a movement that only purports to empower and include all women. I will not proclaim "me too" at any white woman's latest ambivalent protest against a white male patriarchy where I am cast as the interloper in a marital spat. I can, however, walk alongside my white feminist sisters, as long as they are able and willing to walk alongside black womanist me.

Works Cited

Garcia, Sandra E. "The Woman Who Created #MeToo Long Before Hashtags." The New York Times 20 Oct. 2017 <https://mobile.nytimes.com>

Just Be Inc ., Tarana Burke <https://about.me>

Young, Gifted, and Black: Art's Power for the People

By Corinna Lotz

Outside the door opening up to the Soul of a Nation exhibition at Tate Modern screens offer vintage news footage of Black leaders Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, James Baldwin, Malcolm X and Angela Davis.

These men and women - two of whom were assassinated - shaped the political landscape of the 1960s and 1970s. The echo of their voices lends resonance to Nina Simone's call for artists to reflect their times.

In the wake of white supremacist brutality in Ferguson and Charlottesville, revisiting the Black power movement in America has gained a new urgency.

Soul of a Nation shows how artists were swept up in the struggle against the oppression of the institutionally racist US state. Through determined resistance, self-organisation, self-education and study of revolutionary theory, the movement and its artists asserted the possibility of a non-racist and revolutionary culture.

Support for Black power arose out of frustration with the pacifist orientation of the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King. Leaders like Malcolm X called for justice "by any means necessary".

Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded the Black Panther Party in October 1966 to defend victims of police violence. The party championed Black self-determination. At the same time, its 10-point programme was distinctly anti-capitalist and socialist. It appealed to all oppressed and working class people to unite against the ruling classes and the state.

But the US state struck back. Under its chief, J Edgar Hoover, the FBI's counter intelligence programme (COINTELPRO) targeted Black Panther leaders. Police backed by FBI agents murdered Black Panther leaders around the country. Amongst the first to be killed in this way was the BPP's 21-year-old deputy chair, the talented and popular organiser, Fred Hampton. After being drugged by an FBI agent, Hampton was shot whilst asleep in his bed. It was an act of extreme brutality commemorated by artist Dana C Chandler in his reconstruction Fred Hampton's Door.

David Hammons' multi-media Injustice Case (1970) leaps out of the wall: shadowy body marks move around like ghostly x-rays on a white background, framed by the Stars and Stripes. Hammons used imprints of his own body on paper in this cry of anger against the treatment of Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale. Seale was bound and gagged by the trial judge when he was accused of conspiracy after anti-war demonstrations during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

Emory Douglas became the Panthers' Minister of Culture designing a remarkable series of propaganda posters and back covers for The Black Panther newspaper. Large-scale outdoor murals gave artists a chance to reach out to large numbers of people. The famous Wall of Respect, which 14 artists painted on a derelict building in Chicago's South Side in 1967, commemorated Black heroes and heroines including Muhammad Ali, Aretha Franklin and Martin Luther King. It was part of a nation-wide mural movement.

Black and Asian photographers made a special contribution. They celebrated the streets and inhabitants of Harlem as well as engaging in more abstract and lyrical subjects - musicians and singers in performance, still lives and nudes. Just waiting to be re-discovered is a 1955 photo book, The Sweet Flypaper of Life. It is a miniature gem of a story by Langston Hughes accompanied by Roy DeCarava's photographs.

Controversies arose about whether Black art had to be figurative or openly propagandist or whether the artist could work in an abstract idiom. Some like Jack Whitten used abstraction to pay homage to Malcolm X and African American history. British-Guyanese painter, Frank Bowling, took part in these debates. His magisterial Middle Passage features in the second to last space. A superb display of his work is currently at Munich's Haus der Kunst .

The last space at Tate Modern takes on a new spirit of joy in the inventiveness of Lorraine Grady who involved hundreds of people on a parade celebrating Harlem's African American Day Parade.

This is a knock-out show. Go and see it.

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power will be on display at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas at the beginning of 2018 and at the Brooklyn Museum in New York from September 18, 2018.

This article was originally published at the Real Democracy Movement

...And (Quality) Education For All: A Case Study on Race, Poverty, and Education in America

By Milo Levine

Four years ago, when senior Tre'chaun Berkley first came to Tamalpais High School (Mill Valley, CA) from Martin Luther King Jr. Academy, he was nervous. "I felt that I wasn't ready. Coming from a class with 11 students to a class with 20 is something I had to get used to," he said. "On top of that, [I worried about] not knowing how to speak with the people in my class, because I don't speak as proper [as them], so they wouldn't probably understand me or they would make fun [of] the way I say something," he said. Berkley is not alone. Many students of color that come to "Tam" from Marin City experience societal and systemic hardships that disrupt their educational experience.

"The Academic Achievement Gap"

We live in Marin County: the 17th wealthiest county in the country, and also one of the most segregated.

This segregation manifests itself in what teachers and administrators call "the academic achievement gap." According to the Glossary of Education Reform, an achievement gap is "any significant and persistent disparity in academic performance or educational attainment between different groups of students, such as white students and minorities, or students from higher-income and lower-income households."

This problem is very much alive in the Tam community. "The achievement gap correlates to socioeconomic status, and it is a countywide, statewide, and nationwide issue," Sausalito Marin City School District (SMCSD) Board of Trustees President Joshua Barrow said. "This is not something new. It's been around for decades."

Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy (MLK) and charter school Willow Creek Academy (WCA) are both part of SMCSD. Mill Valley Middle School (MVMS) is part of the Mill Valley School District (MVSD). MLK and WCA teach students in grades K-8, while MVMS teaches students in grades 6-8. All three schools feed into Tam, and though they're within four miles of each other, they couldn't be more different.

The aforementioned schools differ significantly in statewide testing results. Student skill, knowledge, and achievement are largely measured by the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) scores. This test is given to students in grades 3-8 and 11. There is a large disparity in student performance when MLK and WCA are compared to MVMS. CAASPP determined that 77 percent of MVMS students are proficient in math, and 83 percent are proficient in English. In stark contrast, 25 percent of MLK students are proficient in math and 25 percent are proficient in English, well below the statewide average of 37 percent in math and 48 percent in English. WCA passed more students than the state's average in both math and English, at 43 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

CAASPP also reports that 82 percent of MLK students and 40 percent of WCA students are either African American or Hispanic. These two demographics perform the lowest in both math and English testing at Tamalpais High School. According to CAASPP, 31 percent of Hispanic students are proficient in math and 36 percent are proficient in English, while only 17 percent of black students are proficient in math and only 23 percent are proficient in English.

These results are heavily influenced by both race and poverty, given that white Tam students from low-income families also receive significantly lower test scores when compared to the general population, but higher test scores than students of color.

Only 3 percent of African American students attending WCA are proficient in math, and only 10 percent are proficient in English. Among low-income students, who make up 42 percent of WCA's population, 23 percent are proficient in math and 35 percent are proficient in English. At MLK, 17 percent of black students are proficient in math and 14 percent are proficient in English. While these statistics highlight SMCSD's shortcomings, they also show that there is a significant racial element to the achievement gap.

The principal of MLK, Dr. Chappelle Griffin, did not respond to multiple email requests for comment.

At Tam, multiple former MLK students said they felt under-served by the teachers at MLK. Freshman Tyrell Atkinson went to MLK from grades K-7, but transferred to WCA for the 8th grade. "I learned a lot in math and English [at MLK], but in all the other [subjects] I didn't," Atkinson said. "The bad teachers let us do whatever we wanted, and we had a sub every week. [I received] average grades, even though I didn't learn a lot from most teachers."

Atkinson said his school experience changed after he transferred. "At WCA they didn't give us much homework like they did at MLK. The teachers were nice and taught us a lot. It was an improvement over MLK," he said.

Unlike Atkinson, sophomore Daeshawn Burr attended MLK for the entirety of his pre-high school education. "MLK was academically bad for me," he said. "They weren't teaching us some stuff that we needed to learn. When I came to Tam I felt underprepared."

Burr elaborated on his rough transition. "I had an F in [Algebra 1-2], both semesters last year," he said. Although he admits that "I wasn't pushing myself to do well," he also added, "My [freshman math teacher] was kind of bad. She was all over the place. I went up to her to get help a few times, but she never helped me. I think she was probably busy." Burr is now in Algebra Foundations.

Tam Social Studies teacher Dr. Claire Ernst defended Tam, in response to Burr's claim that he was underserved by a school instructor. "Our job is to teach all students and to differentiate [instruction] so every student can learn and succeed," she said. "Math poses a lot of challenges in that regard, but our math department in general does a great job. A lot of support is available for kids that need it."

However, Ernst does notice a pattern among the students who require the most additional academic support. "Broadly speaking, students that have been through MLK come in with fewer skills," she said. If a student is struggling, Ernst said she will "meet [the student] at tutorial, restructure assignments, break things into smaller pieces, [and] individualize attention during class."

Berkley, who came to Tam from MLK, also spoke about a rocky transition to high school. "I wanted to go [to MLK], because it was close to my house and in my neighborhood, [but] I didn't feel prepared coming here from MLK," he said. Berkley had a particularly challenging time upon arrival at Tam. "It was a bigger school and I didn't know a lot of the students," he said.

Senior Jaiana Harris, who went to MLK and WCA, has also experienced a fair amount of alienation at Tam. "At MLK everyone's black, but [at Tam] you feel like an outsider," Harris said. Multiple African American students expressed outrage over how welcomed they were by the Tam athletic community, only to then be rejected come school time.

"We are only important during sports, but when it comes to academics, they don't care about us," Harris said, as several nearby African American students chimed in with their agreement. "[Black students] are used for sports… and during the classroom, [there's] no love for us," Berkley added.

Racial issues arise frequently at Tam, unbeknownst to many white members of the community.

"Students feel isolated, due to being black and alone in a class…You feel like you don't belong," Principal J.C. Farr said. At Tam, events such as Breakthrough Day, which took place on February 27 (2017), can help the community unite to mend issues of racial segregation. However, many minority students felt that Breakthrough Day didn't do enough. "I thought [Breakthrough Day] was a waste of time, because it was teachers running it instead of students, and all our teachers that ran it are white," junior Pedro Mira said.

Another issue, according to freshman Ta'Naejah Reed, was a widespread indifference expressed by white students during the day's activities. "I felt [Breakthrough Day] was good, but people couldn't really connect. If you weren't colored or weren't a different race you didn't really connect to it and it wasn't that important," she said.

Breakthrough Day may have catalyzed conversations about race at Tam, even though it evidently left plenty to be desired. Regardless, the Tam administration is actively exploring race and poverty, with regards to the achievement gap. "It's a very complex issue," Farr said. "Some of it is due to preparation and the quality of middle school education."

Chaotic Teacher Turnover

Farr went on to explain one problem in particular that MLK recently faced. "They went months without having a single math teacher for the 8th grade. Those who even receive instruction are greatly advantaged," he said.

Berkley has experienced firsthand MLK's chaotic teacher turnover. "There were so many teacher switches at MLK. There were always new teachers and subs. It was confusing," he said. Almost every former MLK student interviewed mentioned teacher turnover as a substantial difficulty.

SMCSD has had an ongoing problem with teacher turnover, especially as of late. "Sausalito Marin City is a revolving door district. Statistically, having good teachers is the most important thing, and there is definitely more turnover than you want to see," Barrow said.

Referring to MLK's math teaching vacancy, Barrow said they had had a teacher lined up to fill the position, but he quit unexpectedly after a week.

"I don't know the reasons why he left. It could have been culture shock. Maybe he had another job lined up. It takes a special kind of teacher to operate in this environment," Barrow said. "Money doesn't drive the turnover. People just like to be involved in something successful."

The Shanker Institute reported significantly higher turnover rates at schools with a large disadvantaged population, compared to schools with a smaller disadvantaged population. When 34 percent or less of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, teacher turnover rates average 12.8 percent per year. At schools where upwards of 75 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, teacher turnover rates nearly double, to an average of 22 percent per year.

Acknowledging that "all teachers are special in their own right," Barrow listed some of the qualities that make a person a good fit for working at MLK. "[They need a] desire to work with low-income and minority students, cultural awareness and sensitivity, particularly with African American, Hispanic, and the many other ethnic groups we serve, [and the] ability to work in a small district which may not have the specialization, process maturity, systems, or support structures of a large district," he said.

In a research analysis report, the Center for Public Education corroborated Barrow's analysis, suggesting that a good teacher is integral to student success. "Research consistently shows that teacher quality-whether measured by content knowledge, experience, training and credentials, or general intellectual skills-is strongly related to student achievement: Simply, skilled teachers produce better student results," the organization reported.

Tam has recently taken on an active role in trying to stop MLK's teacher carousel. "[Math department teacher leader] David Wetzel was assigned to teach at MLK, part time, for the semester," Farr said.

"MLK, for over a year, did not have a math teacher, so I asked the school to let me go over there to teach math and they said yes. I have been teaching there [part time] since the start of the semester," Wetzel said.

This is not the first time Wetzel has sought to help the academically challenged school. "Ten years ago, students coming [to Tam] from MLK were underperforming, so we started the MLK Math Transition Program, and MLK student's performance went up," he said. "Then SMCSD canceled the program, after three years, and performance went down again." Wetzel and Barrow both said that they did not know why the program had been cancelled.

Regardless, things are now looking up for MLK 8th graders, according to Wetzel. "The students are very grateful and positive now that they have a math teacher again. They are working very hard to learn as much material as possible," he said. From SMCSD's point of view, Barrow said, "The Wetzel situation is kind of like a band-aid. It's a temporary fix."

Funding, Education, and Added Stressors

Teacher pay could be a factor in SMCSD's turnover problem, given that teachers at MVMS have a higher average salary than teachers MLK or WCA. However, it would appear that funding in general is not the main driving force behind the district's poor academic performance. "On dollars per student, SMCSD is far ahead of MVSD, even after all of Kiddo's contributions," said Barrow.

Kiddo, which Barrow is referring to, is a nonprofit founded in 1982 that funds all Mill Valley School District (MVSD) campuses, covering kids from kindergarten to 8th grade. In the 2015-2016 school year alone, Kiddo raised almost $3.5 million for the district. A vast majority of this money goes straight into the schools.

Barrow is convinced that there are many other causes at play, unrelated to finances. "It's not all about money. It's about leadership, structure, consistency, and many other factors," he said. "I wouldn't say that Kiddo is why MVSD is doing so great. It helps, but it's not primary, and I don't know what they're doing right, but I do know that they have [a greater] size and a [smaller] disadvantaged population."

Students who come from low-income families face many academic obstacles. In their book about improving school performance, William Parrett and Kathleen Budge, both of whom have Ph.Ds in the educational field, wrote that "[Students living in poverty] may have limited access to high-quality day care, limited access to before-or after-school care, and limited physical space in their homes to create private or quiet environments conducive to study." They also reported that economic privilege manifests itself early, and those who don't have it suffer from the start. "…Substandard housing, inadequate medical care, and poor nutrition can affect the rate of childhood disease, premature births, and low birth weights, all of which affect a child's physical and cognitive development," they wrote.

In addition to navigating potential stressors at home, many students reported struggling with an environment at MLK that they did not find conducive to learning. "It was so easy to get in trouble there. It's a small classroom, with all of your friends. A lot of students in there were messing around and stopping the class," Berkley said. When faculty tried to intervene with students' misbehavior, Berkley felt that it sometimes made things worse.

"[I had an] English teacher [who] was too busy punishing kids that she didn't teach us anything," he said.

Berkley was not the only MLK alum whose experience was marred significantly by feuds between the students and the adults. Many felt that the constant conflict hampered their ability to learn much at all.

On the other end of the spectrum, MVMS alumna and current Tam sophomore Alexis Detjen-Creson said, "The school [MVMS] made sure that you did well. If you were struggling, the teacher would talk to you in private about getting your performance back on track."

Compounding the inequities between the two districts is the contrast in their sizes. Because MVSD has a massive population of around 3,400 students, compared to the relatively tiny SMCSD population of 540 students, it has more resources and can operate more efficiently. "[SMCSD] is one of the smallest [districts] in Marin. There are nineteen school districts in the county. We need to fix that," Barrow said.

Barrow has started a committee to try to combine SMCSD and MVSD into one district. "To consolidate like this, you need to hold a vote on it. If it got through, the governing board and the voters would be invested in improving Sausalito Marin City student's performance. The community at large would be pushing for this betterment," Barrow said. The community, in this case, would be families from Sausalito, Marin City, and Mill Valley, all working together to accomplish the same goal: improving academic success. The issue has not yet been brought to a vote; however, for the measure to pass, two-thirds of voters would have to approve it, a tall order for any bill.

Politics and Education

SMCSD has been subject to a fair amount of controversy as of late, primarily due to the release of a Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) report, an organization that investigates the financial status of local educational agencies. Published on August 10, 2016, the report concluded that: "The district has not met the needs of students at Bayside MLK, and the result is that students are underachieving." More specifically, MLK students are scoring well below average in statewide testing, in addition to being outperformed by their own district counterpart: WCA.

The assessment has since been disputed by SMCSD, who stated on their website that "The report was called into question by the Sausalito Marin City School District Board of Trustees, as it contained several factual inaccuracies and unfounded allegations."

The political controversy surrounding SMCSD can distract from the most important issue: the well-being and success of the students. There are some external organizations that are actively helping out, such as Marin Promise, which aims to propel disadvantaged students through high school and into college. There has been an increased effort to improve student's 9th grade math readiness, and Wetzel is currently working with the group to find solutions.

Another group is Bridge the Gap College Prep, which is a "college preparatory and youth development organization that provides programming aimed at preparing Marin City students for college success," according to their mission statement.

The effectiveness of such programs cannot accurately be measured at this time, due to a lack of available information and statistics from said non-profits.

Barrow has made an effort to address the matter at an earlier grade level "By high school, it's too late to integrate low and high income students," he said.

Measure A of 2016, a bill that would have, among many other things, created low price or free preschool for underserved children in Marin County, failed. This was a great disappointment for Barrow, who was hoping to improve kid's readiness for kindergarten.

The Marin GOP was a staunch opponent of Measure A, due to a common conservative opposition to welfare expansion. This may have resulted in the failure of the bill, even in a predominantly liberal area.

Granted, it's best to confront the achievement gap with younger kids, but high schools still have to take responsibility for their role in the issue, according to Farr. "We are amping up transition programs over the summer, to build up student's skills," said Principal Farr. "[It has taken me] some time to try and develop an understanding of the situation." Farr wants the Tam community to know that "We're committed to addressing the achievement gap."

Despite facing many obstacles throughout his educational career, Senior Tre'chaun Berkley is now looking to move forward, via higher education. After looking into various options, he finally made his decision. "I'm going to go to a community college, then [I'll] transfer into a university after two years," Berkley said. Reflecting on his time in high school, he added, "For the future [minority] students [at Tam], I want to say look to be a leader, [not] a follower."

Milo Levine is a student-journalist who serves as a news editor and editorial board member for The Tam News, a school paper located in Mill Valley, CA. Milo has won a national Certificate of Merit from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.

Capitalism and White Supremacy: The Two-Headed Dragon that Must Be Slain

By Matthew Dolezal

Four decades of neoliberal Reaganomics has decimated the American poor and working class. Median wages have remained stagnant since the late 1970s, despite a consistent increase in productivity. The top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the country's wealth, and top CEOs make more than 300 times that of the average worker (which is a 1,000 percent increase since 1978). There are 46 million Americans officially living in poverty, but, due to the arbitrary nature of the poverty line, another 100 million are "near poor" (i.e. cannot afford basic necessities). And keep in mind - this is happening in the richest country in the world. These third-world levels of economic inequality make the US look a lot like an oligarchy. The vast majority of new income goes to the top 1 percent, and one family -  the Waltons of the Walmart empire - has more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the population.

Wealth concentration and poverty under neoliberalism aren't abstract concepts; they have tangible consequenses. For example, half of all Americans don't even live paycheck to paycheck, student loan debt is diminishing the prospects of home ownership, climate change is beginning to devastate poor communities while helping the rich, and 45,000 people die every year due to a lack of health insurance. In Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967, he said :

"One day we must ask the question, 'Why are there forty million poor people in America?' When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy."

But this is a democracy, right? Who would vote for such a grim existence? Well, according to an academic study from Cambridge , there is literally no correlation between public opinion and government policy. Turns out the plutocrats are running the show (thanks, in part, to Citizens United ).

Generic, theoretical capitalism is inseparable from our current paradigm of advanced, hyper-consumerist, job-shipping, union-busting, soul-crushing neoliberalism. Prominent capitalists have fought desperately to achieve this sadistic system, which is the culmination of an evolutionary history of laissez-faire. One day, long ago, Adam Smith planted roses, and all that remain are the thorns. To quote King again, "today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness."

But capitalism is not an equal-opportunity destroyer. These social tragedies demonstrably and empirically affect folks of color at vastly disproportional rates. For instance, the average net worth of black households is $6,314, compared to $110,500 for the average white household. Blacks are more than twice as likely as whites to be poor, and a white male with a criminal record is more likely to get a job than an equally qualified person of color with a clean record. Median black household income is approximately $43,300, while median white household income is around $71,300. This discrepancy is roughly 40 percent greater today than it was in 1967. And these economic disparities are just the beginning. For instance, in the area of mass incarceration, more than 40 percent of US inmates are black men, while that demographic only makes up 6.5 percent of the general population. In the area of police violence, black teens age 15-19 are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police than white teens of the same age group. These statistics could continue for pages. Profound systemic racism poisons every aspect of American society. These horrors are manifestations of the racial caste system that has always existed in the US, which is discussed at length by Michelle Alexander in her groundbreaking book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

We often forget that merely five decades ago, our country maintained a government-sactioned apartheid system. This included the intentional creation of black ghettos through redlining and other discriminatory policies. Political inertia, mixed with the racist War on Drugs, has preserved the vestiges of white supremacy. The reality on the ground looks a lot like the same ol' Jim Crow; that guy we swore we kicked out in 1964.

But racism isn't just institutional; it is often overt. The recent emergence of Trump made this crystal-clear . Not only did the Ku Klux Klan and white nationalists endorse him, but even for his voters, " fear of diversity " was a significant motivating factor.

The evils of racism are clearly apparent to any non-psychopath, but racial ideologies also serve to pit poor and working-class white folks against people of color and minorities, distracting them from their true nemesis; the ruling class. This is a classic example of "divide and conquer," and has benefited the elites immensely. Anti-racism activist and author Tim Wise elucidates this phenomenon in a concise Marxian manner:

"The history of America is the history of rich white men telling not rich white people that their enemies are black and brown."

Let's put an end to this madness. Let's build a movement to confront and destroy this dual evil of economic and racial injustice. Might I suggest…

Socialists have a rich tradition of fighting racism, from the Communist Party of Alabama , to Cuba's critical support of black South Africans during Apartheid, to early 20th century socialist politician Eugene Debs , to revolutionary Marxist Rosa Luxemburg , to the original Black Panthers Party . Socialists not only see racism as contrary to worker solidarity, but as a destructive and dehumanizing hierarchy, just like the class system itself. And indeed, capitalism and racism have a symbiotic relationship. Two modern organizations that are battling this double-headed beast are Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Redneck Revolt .

Founded in 1982, DSA is the largest socialist organization in the US, with a total dues-paying membership of 25,000 (a four-fold increase since November of 2016). Members have been active in opposing the agenda of the Trump regime, as well as carrying the torch of the Bernie Sanders political revolution. DSA has been on the front lines fighting for a $15 minimum wage, universal healthcare, LGBTQ equality, climate justice, reproductive rights, and many other progressive causes. However, one thing that separates DSA from other left-leading organizations such as Our Revolution is their vehement anti-capitalism. DSA document Where We Stand: Building the Next Left explains:

"We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.

We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships."

On the topic of anti-racist activism, DSA Honorary Chair and prominent intellectual Cornel West writes :

"A long and deep legacy of white supremacy has always arrested the development of US democracy… When the system is declining, it can bring despair. That's why Black Lives Matter   -   and all other young people of all colors who are mobilizing   -   is a beautiful thing. We are having a moral and spiritual awakening. It gives us democratic hope... It's time to move from being spectators, to being actors."

Members of Redneck Revolt are not liberals . They are pro-gun, pro-labor, anti-fascist, and anti-racist. The movement is rapidly expanding, with more than 30 chapters around the US. Developing around 2009 as an outgrowth of the John Brown Gun Club, this diverse group now focuses on recruiting rural, southern and Appalachian working-class folks to join the fight against white supremacy and capitalism, while protecting and supporting people of color and other marginalized communities. After all, many of these poor southern white folks have been voting against their own interests for decades after falling for the xenophobic rhetoric of prominent politicians. Dave Strano, a founding member of the organization, explains:

"The history of the white working class has been a history of being an exploited people. However, we've been an exploited people that further exploits other exploited people. While we've been living in tenements and slums for centuries, we've also been used by the rich to attack our neighbors, coworkers, and friends of different colors, religions and nationalities."

Member Max Neely summarized their strategy by saying simply:

"We use gun culture as a way to relate to people. No liberal elitism. Our basic message is: guns are fine, but racism is not."

Now, I know just mentioning the term "white privilege" can make people uncomfortable , but this sociological reality must be acknowledged and dismantled as an inherent aspect of entrenched white supremacy. White privilege is the flip-side of the oppression and marginalization faced by people of color. Simply being given an unconditional pass to avoid oppression, discrimination, profiling, and other forms of profound inequality is in itself a major manifestation of white privilege. But an understanding of intersectionality as it relates to privilege is also crucial, just as it is in understanding oppression and exploitation. If one has privileges based on other sociological aspects of their identity, this privilege may extend beyond merely avoiding the injustices uniquely faced by non-whites. In addition to race, these realms include class, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, etc. The more dominant groups one belongs to, the more privileges that are usually afforded to that individual. Based on a rudimentary analysis of modern American society, the most privileged demographic would be wealthy, white, heterosexual, cisgendered, Christian men. Indeed, if you pay even peripheral attention to current events and history, you'll quickly realize that these are, more often than not, the people who own and control our society and have since its inception. One such man was "founding father" and forth president of the United States, James Madison, who was passionate about protecting "the minority of the opulent against the majority." Oh, and he also owned over a hundred slaves. There are still dudes like this, but now they're banksters and Koch -fiends. Let's break this trend. To those of us with various forms of privilege, let's use it to fight for a better future for everyone.

The genocide of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas was our nation's original sin. White supremacy and capitalism were then built upon this rotten foundation. These parasitic abominations emerged simultaneously in American society; let's dismantle them simultaneously as well.

Black Bolsheviks and White Lies: Reflections on the Black Radical Tradition

By Peta Lindsay

A lot of nonsense has been written about the role of Putin's Russia in subverting "our democracy." As though our democracy had been functioning perfectly (even reasonably) well, until these shadowy Russian forces purchased a few Facebook ads that sent us all into the streets. It's a laughable concept. I'm sorry, did Putin acquit George Zimmerman or Jason Stockley? Did Putin shoot 12-year-old Tamir Rice? Russia did not carry out the drug war against African Americans or implement policies of mass incarceration, or pass voter ID laws in the U.S. - all of which have contributed to disenfranchising millions of African Americans over the years. The U.S. has a lot to answer for with regard to systematically denying the democratic rights of African Americans and this is not the first time they've tried to deflect criticism for that by blaming Russia. As a student of history I've mostly just rolled my eyes this time around while the Democrats attempt to make red-scare tactics that are very old, new again. But a recent entry in this canon of "Black activists are pawns of Moscow" writing is so insulting and patently false, that, as we approach the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, it seems very important to reply.

Last month an author named Terrell Jermaine Starr wrote a piece for The Root entitled, " Russia's Recent Facebook Ads Prove the Kremlin Never Loved Black People ."

I've enjoyed entries from The Root before, particularly in chronicling racist attacks against African Americans that are underreported in the mainstream media. But their willingness to toe the Democratic Party line, uncritically in most circumstances, has been noted.

Starr's piece is supposedly historical in scope but is premised upon a huge, glaring, historical fallacy: that of conflating the Russian Federation with the Soviet Union. In one sentence, Starr describes the two as essentially the same (showing you the level of material historical analysis he's interested in engaging in) and then for the rest of the article proceeds to whitewash the history of Black communism, using the favorite arguments deployed by racists - that Blacks who supported socialism did so because they were duped, and that the Soviet Union was only interested in Black liberation insofar as it meant spiting their enemies in the White House.

These assertions deny the agency of African Americans, many of whom were amongst the most prominent Black intellectuals of their time, who looked to the Soviet system as an alternative to American racism and exploitation. This interpretation also denies the real solidarity and support that the Soviet Union expressed in their assistance to liberation movements of many Black, brown and oppressed people all over the world. Since anti-communist propaganda is easily promulgated without evidence in this country, allow me to present some of the evidence that exposes these racist lies for what they are.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was birthed via a revolution in 1917 and overthrown via counter-revolution in 1991. While Russians were in the majority of the population, the USSR itself was actually an extremely diverse and vibrant society for all of its existence. The Soviet Union spanned 14 time zones and comprised many independent nationalities and ethnic groups, such as Tajiks, Kazakhs, Lithuanians, Tartars - all of whom spoke different languages, practiced different religions - and suffered terrible racist oppression under the Tsar. The triumph of the socialist revolution and the very existence of this unique political formation was the result of a revolution carried out by united oppressed peoples, who rose up as one and took control of society away from their Tsarist and capitalist exploiters. The Bolsheviks always took the task of uniting oppressed people and elevating their struggle very seriously. This was a key to their success and a guiding principle in their work. It was Lenin who pioneered communist opposition to imperialism and he who changed the Marxist formulation, "Workers of the World Unite" to "Workers and oppressed people of the world unite" as an expression of the priority they placed on the struggle of colonized people against imperialism.

Around the world, the 1919 triumph of Lenin and the Bolsheviks was greeted by the imperialists with great dismay and by oppressed/colonized peoples with great enthusiasm, inspiration and hope. In America, 1919 was an infamous year, known for its "Red Summer" of intense lynchings, race riots and gruesome violence against African Americans at the hands of white mobs. The Black American political movement had entered a new era of militancy, as veterans returning from WWI were less inclined to submit to Jim Crow and more inclined to fight for their dignity, wages and rights. A new wave of radical Black intellectuals all but took over the Black political scene, many from the Caribbean and mostly based in Harlem in the 1920s and 30s. These men and women were considered some of the premier thinkers and writers of their time and of the majority of these radical African American leaders-regardless of political orientation- held the Russian Revolution in very high esteem.

According to historian Winston James, in his work Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia, the appeal of the Russian Revolution to Black people in America at the time lay not in their having been "recruited" by Russia as the Root article asserts, but in their own independent evaluation of the Bolshevik government and where it stood with regard to equality for oppressed and colonized people.

James wrote about three major factors that attracted Black people to Bolshevism in the 1920s and 1930s. The first was the domestic policies promoting national minorities and oppressed groups that were put in place almost immediately after the triumph of the revolution. After the revolution the Bolshevik government undertook what can be described as the most far reaching and thorough affirmative action plan that any government has ever attempted, dedicating much in the way of their limited resources towards raising the standard of living for groups who had been historically oppressed and creating conditions that could facilitate greater equality for those groups.

To Black Americans, the most convincing example was the swiftness and seriousness with which the Soviets began redressing historical inequality suffered by the Jews, including immediately outlawing discrimination against them and putting an end to the violent pogroms that had plagued them under the Tsar. In 1923 Claude McKay, the young Black intellectual, writer and poet wrote: "For American Negroes the indisputable and outstanding fact of the Russian Revolution is that a mere handful of Jews, much less in ratio to the number of Negroes in the American population, have attained, through the Revolution, all the political and social rights that were denied to them under the regime of the Czar (166)."

The other two factors explored by James were the "uncompromising rhetoric of anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, and the right of self-determination for oppressed nations (165)" espoused by the Bolshevik government and the creation of the Third Communist International, an international body that openly encouraged colonized (often Black or Brown) people to rise up against their (mostly European) exploiters all over the world.

At a point when the U.S. government had systematically ignored the pleas of Black people to pass even one federal law against lynching, when city and state governments all over the country were colluding in lynchings, race riots and allowing whites who attacked Blacks to go free, or even reap rewards - it doesn't take a genius to figure out why many Black thinkers were genuinely excited that such a different kind of government, one that spoke to them and had taken action to support and defend its own national minorities, had come into the world.

Black and white (film)

Langston Hughes was a Black intellectual of this generation, this being the same generation that we associate with the Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro. Of all the insults buried in that heinous Root article, the disrespect to Langston Hughes, inarguably one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century, is one of the most difficult to endure. Starr paints Hughes as a dupe, someone "recruited" to champion the Soviet Union, as if the man had not traveled all over the world, studied and written extensively and was not capable of genuinely supporting a government that he believed to be on the right track. We revere Hughes' poetry that celebrates Black beauty, he is the jazz poet laureate of Black America and we love to recite his words that affirm our deep history and continued struggle in the face of white American racism. But what about his poetry celebrating the Soviet Union? Here's a link to a poem that he wrote praising Lenin . Did they break that one out at your school's Black history month event? Probably not. But that doesn't change the fact that Langston Hughes was extremely sympathetic to the Soviet Union, as is abundantly evident in his autobiographical writing, including in the chapter of I Wonder As I Wander, "Moscow Movie."

The Root provides perhaps the most cynical and shallow reading of this chapter possible, though I hesitate to affirm that that author of that piece has even actually read it. "Moscow Movie" tells an important story about a time in 1932 when Langston Hughes was invited to the Soviet Union by the government, to work on a major film production. This film was called "Black and White" and it was supposed to highlight the struggle of Black workers in the South and give an international showcase to the racism and oppression experienced by Black people in America. According to Langston Hughes, it was "intended to be the first great Negro-white film ever made in the world (80)," though unfortunately it did not come to fruition.

Hughes accompanied a delegation of 22 young African Americans who were supposed to star in the film, though it was odd that most in that group were not actors or performers by trade. Starr erroneously attributes this casting to racism, saying that Hughes determined that the Soviets were so racist that they assumed that all Black people could sing and dance (and play sports?) and so didn't bother to check the backgrounds of the people they hired for the film.

In fact, Hughes said nothing of the sort. He addressed the peculiar composition of the delegation early in the chapter, stating, "That most of our group were not actors seems to have been due to the fact that very few professional theater people were willing to pay their own fares to travel all the way to Russia to sign contracts they had never seen. Only a band of eager, adventurous young students, teachers, writers and would-be-actors were willing to do that, looking forward to the fun and wonder of a foreign land as much as to film-making. There were a few among them who wanted to get away from American race prejudice forever, being filled up with Jim Crow (70)."

It's important that Hughes highlighted their motives as traveling to seek a reprieve from American racism. So high was the esteem for the Soviet Union in the group, that "When the train stopped beneath this banner for passports to be checked, a few of the young black men and women left the train to touch their hands to Soviet soil, lift the new earth in their palms, and kiss it (73)," according to Hughes.

In his accusations of racism what Starr may be referring to is where Hughes says at one point, "Europeans as well as Americans, seem to be victims of that old cliche that Negroes just naturally sing (80)." That is hardly an indictment of any particularly Russian racism and more of a complaint on how African Americans are represented on the world stage.

Lack of specific cultural knowledge about African Americans was a problem throughout the film's production and that is what Hughes believes ultimately damned the film. Hughes was given an early copy of the script and let them know that he did not think it was usable because there were so many errors with regard to what racism and working class struggle actually looked like in the American South. Hughes said that the author of the script was well intentioned but had never been to America. He also said that information from or by Black Americans was rarely translated into Russian in those days. Even with these critiques, it's nearly impossible to interpret Hughes as being at all bitter or resentful at the Soviets for their attempt at making this film. On the contrary, Hughes wrote with unmistakable good humour throughout the chapter and also repeatedly mentioned that they were all paid in full and well taken care of, even when it became clear the film wouldn't be made.

The reception that the students received in Moscow is really remarkable, especially considering the historical context - none of which The Root brings up, of course. The students were "wined and dined" in Hughes' own words, they were put up in the most lavish hotels and treated to free tickets to the theater, the opera, the ballet and dinners and parties with dignitaries and important people, almost every night. They were official guests of the state and treated with the highest honors. No Black delegation has ever been received in America with such grace. Hughes says that they were always introduced as "representatives of the great Negro people (82)" and after describing the incredible amenities at one of the elaborate resorts they were housed in, he adds "I had never stayed in such a hotel in my own country, since, as a rule, Negroes were not then permitted to do so (93)."

On their reception by ordinary Soviet citizens, Hughes writes:

"Of all the big cities in the world where I've been, the Muscovites seemed to me to be the politest of peoples to strangers. But perhaps that was because we were Negroes and, at that time, with the Scottsboro Case on world-wide trial in the papers everywhere, and especially in Russia, folks went out of their way there to show us courtesy. On a crowded bus, nine times out of ten, some Russian would say, "Negrochanski tovarish - Negro comrade - take my seat!' On the streets queueing up for newspapers or cigarettes, or soft drinks, often folks in line would say, "Let the Negro comrade go forward." (74)

This is in 1932! Nowhere in America were Black people treated like this in 1932. Hell, many of us could not get that treatment today, if our lives depended on it (and they sometimes do). This account echoes many others by African Americans who visited or moved to the Soviet Union. In William Mandel's Soviet but Not Russian, Muhammad Ali is quoted as saying of his 1978 visit to the Soviet Union:

"I saw a hundred nationalities. No such thing as a Black man, or a white man, or 'you nigger,' or get back. People say, 'Oh well, they just showed you the best.' You mean all of those white folks rehearsed, said: 'Muhammad Ali's coming!' .. 'All hundred nationalities, pretend you get along. Muhammad Ali's coming!'…'They just took you where they wanted to go.' I know that's a lie. I got in my car and told my driver where to go. Lying about the Russians.. I jogged in the mornings in strange places where they hardly ever saw a Black man. I ran past two little white Russian ladies who were walking to work. They didn't look around and ask what I was doing. I can't go jogging in some streets in America in the morning in a white neighborhood." (85)

The Root tries to paint a picture of a USSR where the same racism that existed in Jim Crow America infected everyone there, but there simply is not enough evidence to say that was the case. They cite the experiences of one Black American man (Robert Robinson), thoroughly. But what about the experiences of the estimated 400,000 African students who were educated for free in the Soviet Union between 1950-1990? These Black youth attended technical schools, Lumumba University and the special Lenin school for leadership, they lived and traveled all over the Soviet Union and upon graduation, they would return to their homelands with skills necessary to aid in the new independence governments. Mandel interviewed quite a few Black Soviets for his book, including other African Americans who moved to the Soviet Union- and the picture they paint is very different from the one in Robinson's account. Providing no evidence, Starr also asserts that interracial relationships would naturally be a problem in the Soviet Union, saying "both Russian and white American men weren't cool with their women messing with black men." Since he introduced the term "bullshit" just before that line, I'm going to call bullshit on that.

Langston Hughes' account features many stories of the men in his group dating Soviet women and not a word about anyone batting an eye at such pairings - which in 1932, would have gotten someone lynched in the United States. Please stop projecting American racism onto the Soviet Union, when you just don't have the evidence to back that up. As W.E.B. Dubois wrote on his third visit to the USSR in 1949, "of all countries, Russia alone has made race prejudice a crime; of all great imperialisms, Russia alone owns no colonies of dark serfs or white and what is more important has no investments in colonies and is lifting no blood-soaked profits from cheap labor in Asia and Africa." The material basis for widespread Jim Crow style racism just wasn't there.

Hughes was aware that the western press celebrated the failure of the movie and spread many rumours that they knew to be false concerning the Soviet government maneuvering against the Black students. He writes that Western journalists, who saw them spending money and carousing in Moscow nightclubs, filed stories in the U.S. about how they were going unpaid and neglected.

Hughes wrote that some in his group suspected that the movie was scrapped because the Soviets were sacrificing the Black struggle to appease the American government - but Hughes himself did not believe that. He was one of the only members of the group who saw the script and he was unequivocal in stating that more than anything else, it was the script that caused the project's failure. Hughes also repeatedly mentioned the context of the international campaign in defense of the Scottsboro Boys, a Black struggle that was most certainly not being dropped by the Soviets, as all this was going on.

The Root miscasts this excerpt from the life of Langston Hughes to support their conclusion that "the Soviets' attempts to curry favor with the black struggle" was "insincere and downright fraudulent." I would counter that this anti-communist propaganda is actually "insincere and downright fraudulent" but allow me to present further evidence on the genuine solidarity expressed by the Soviet Union. Sticking with the theme, let's keep talking about film.

Focus on Africa in film

In the book Focus on African Film, noted film scholar Josephine Woll describes "The Russian Connection" between the Soviet Union and African film, an invaluable alliance in making postcolonial African cinema a reality. As alluded to in the previous section, the Soviet Union expended a lot of resources on aid and development for African nations, who were in the process of throwing off their own colonial oppressors and beginning their independence after World War II. These countries were severely underdeveloped, as chronicled by Walter Rodney and the Soviet Union was a key ally in providing material support, education and technology to allow these countries to thrive without being beholden to their former colonial masters. It's worth noting that the greatest victory for Black liberation to occur in my lifetime, the fall of apartheid in South Africa, involved a great deal of material and political support from the Soviet Union, which was integral to the success of that movement.

Film was another area in which the Soviet Union provided Africans with crucial foundational support. Ousmane Sembene of Senegal, widely considered the "father of African film" was educated in the Soviet Union. This was also the case for other pioneering African filmmakers, like Souleymane Cissé of Mali and Abderrahmne Sissako of Mauritania/Mali and Sarah Maldoror, the French daughter of immigrants from Guadeloupe who made many films about African liberation. In addition to technical know-how, the Soviet Union also provided the essential film and production equipment, distribution and promotion, to bring African cinema onto the world stage.

Dr. Woll seems to believe that the motives of the Soviets were clearly political, but also genuine. Woll wrote: "The Bolshevik Revolution and its aftermath, radically altered how, why, and for whom films were made. Financial profit still mattered but it competed with other goals: educational, political, promotional. The new regime in post-tsarist Russia, like the new leaders of post-colonial African nations, willingly allocated part of its budget to subsidizing cinema because it recognized how effective the medium could be as an instrument of propaganda; and most Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s, though they had individual and often compelling aesthetic agendas, readily supported the politics of revolution (225)." In the U.S. we tend to be very cynical of the word "propaganda" but in revolutionary times, propaganda is necessary and the Africans needed aid in producing theirs. Ousmane Sembene clearly agreed; he was adamant about telling compelling political stories through his films and he fully recognized the potential for his films to "help decolonize Africa (225)."

The Soviet Union trained and equipped these African directors, so that they could bring the beauty and the struggle of their people to the world stage. The work of these revolutionary African filmmakers can be seen as a happy ending to the saga that was begun with "Black and White." While we never got the Soviet sponsored film about Black struggle in the U.S. that they wanted to produce, we have since seen a variety of films out of different African countries that highlight their struggle in similar, but undoubtedly much more accurate, ways.

Conclusion

I realize that this was a lot to write in response to a small article that was probably not even this carefully considered by the author himself. But the legacy of the Soviet Union with regard to Black struggle is unique and inspiring and should be celebrated, not horrifically distorted and denied. In Paul Robeson Speaks, the great Black American actor says:

"Mankind has never witnessed the equal of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. . . . Firstly, because of the significance it has for my people generally. Everywhere else, outside of the Soviet world, black men are an oppressed and inhumanely exploited people. Here, they come within the provisions of Article 123 of Chapter X of the Constitution, which reads: "The equality of the right of the citizens of the U.S.S.R. irrespective of their nationality or race, in all fields of economic, state, cultural, social, and political life, is an irrevocable law. Any direct or indirect restriction of these rights, or conversely the establishment of direct or indirect privileges for citizens on account of the race or nationality to which they belong, as well as the propagation of racial or national exceptionalism, or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law." (1978, 116)

While our current President appoints KKK members to the Department of Justice and calls Nazi murderers "very fine people," while his opponent Hillary Clinton called our children "super predators" and campaigned for them to be locked up en masse- we have to appreciate how significant it is that a national government - in 1919 - put laws on the books like the ones described above. They outlawed racism. They invested heavily in Black education and Black artistic expression. They gave guns to those fighting imperialists and fascists all over the world. What more could you want? Terrell Jermaine Starr and The Root may be confused about which government cares about Black people, but I can't say that I am. I'm proud to be a socialist and I'm proud of the legacy of friendship between my people and the USSR.

As I mentioned in the start of this article, calling Africans who fight for their liberation "Commies" or "dupes" is nothing new. John Hope Franklin referred to this in From Slavery to Freedom, saying that the response to Black self-defense against race riots in 1919 caused such speculation: "Many American whites freely suggested that foreign influences - especially … Bolshevik propaganda after the 1917 Russian Revolution - had caused blacks to fight back. Perhaps there is some truth to that… However, black Americans all along the political spectrum (from conservative, to moderate, to radical left) ridiculed the claim that their new assertiveness was the result of 'outside agitation.' American blacks needed no outsiders to awaken their sense of the tremendous contradiction between America's professed beliefs and its actual practices (362)".

That remains as true today as it was when written. Additionally, I'll close with one more statement from that time, which also remains true, for myself at least. The militant Black Harlem publication The Crusader, under the leadership of fiery Black Communist Cyril Briggs declared in 1919: "If to fight for one's rights is to be Bolshevists, then we are Bolshevists and let them make the most of it!"

This article originally appeared at Liberation School .

References

Hughes, Langston. (1984). I wonder as I wander: An autobiographical journey. New York: Hill and Wang.

Robeson, Paul. (1978). Paul Robeson speaks: Writings, speeches, interviews 1918-1974, ed. by P.S. Foner. New York: Citadel.

Reflections on Charlottesville, Political Violence, and False Equivalencies

By Zack Ford

The violence in Charlottesville Virginia at a "unite the right" rally that resulted in one death is being condemned across the political spectrum. Very few are willing to do anything but denounce violence that results in death. Perhaps this is our "default" moral position. It is easy to say that such violence is stupid and has no place in America today. It is much more difficult to understand why people put their lives on the line for such "stupid" things in the first place.

An outright denunciation of violence implies that all violence is preventable. The common belief is that if we understand what the "cause" of the violence was, we can prevent it from occurring in the future. Regarding Charlottesville, the cause was a "unite the right" rally, which, at least in theory, attempted to unite different right-wing factions and preserve the monuments that constantly remind us of the history of subjugation of black and brown people upon which this country is built and of their continuing second-class citizenship. In practice, this was carried out by flying Neo-nazi flags and propaganda and obsessively performing the "Heil Hitler" salute, all while provoking physical violence. Violence erupted when students and residents decided this type of behavior was not welcome in their community. So, if the racist rally never was allowed to occur, the violence would have never erupted and the loss of life could have potentially been prevented. Anyone who wishes to prevent this type of violence from unfolding in the future must recognize that the racist slurs and hateful sentiments which are inextricably linked with such groups are the catalyst of the violence that occurred, and that such forms of expression must be silenced to prevent future violence.

Of course, the counter point is that if alt-right, neo-nazi groups are to be silenced then groups such as Black Lives Matter must also be silenced. Unfortunately, it is difficult for many so-called defenders of equality to recognize the conflict between this position and the notion of equality itself. It is somehow controversial to many defenders of human life to argue that Black Lives Matter should be allowed to march, protest, and rally, while groups such as the KKK should be silenced and suppressed. While the equivocation of Black Lives Matter and the alt-right is proven false by historical and social conditions, the fact that it continues to surface among large parts of the white population when events like this occur, it is worth returning to -- even if it requires beating a dead horse.

White people struggle to see beyond the notion that both Black lives Matter and the Klan are "violent" because they commit acts of violence. While this might be true according to a very narrow and particular standard of the term "violence" itself, we must consider the different types of violence each group commits. First off, is it worth pointing out that it is perfectly legitimate for members of the Klan to march as they did today in Charlottesville with loaded assault rifles without being hassled by police, or should I say, while the police allowed them to march with such weapons? It is unquestionable what would happen if the movement for Black Lives showed up with guns. Furthermore, after the civil war, the Klan was declared a terrorist organization and the state governments called out the militia when the Klan surfaced. Klan speech was not permitted as "free speech" since the limitations of free speech prevent direct threats of violence, which the Klan has always issued. Beyond the unequal power dynamic is the fact that the Klan aims to commit violence towards any non-European or non-white "other" while Black lives matter aims to correct the injustices of the structures and institutions that perpetuate oppression -- towards the police that target them for looking like "thugs" as if thugs look a certain way, towards the economy that deprives them of living a decent life, towards the laws and regulations that do not grant them the same rights, and towards the entire system under which they find no representation. Considering the history of America, can such actions be considered violence? Is breaking a window or burning a car the same as public hangings and slavery? If violence is the intention to harm someone, then these actions are not "violent" but are merely attempts to correct prior injustices. Insofar as they do not cause physical harm, but instead bring more freedom and equality, they cannot be considered violent.

The so-called "violence" of the movement for Black Lives is nothing more than a rejection of the willful ignorance towards the ways in which the mechanisms of the state function to perpetuate white supremacy. It is an attempt to correct the ignorant beliefs that do not simply remain beliefs, but are rather transformed into policies which have real material consequences for marginalized people. In other words, it is directed not towards people who do not look like them, but to people who hold these beliefs without recognizing their material impact. Of course, to white consciousness it will feel as though the movement for Black Lives is perpetuating violence against them for being white. The point is that America is a country built on the enslavement and oppression of black people, and this bloody history conditions the way we experience the world. The feeling of exclusion that pervades white consciousness when facing movements such as Black Lives Matter is also a product of that same history. For white people, it might feel as though Black Lives Matter is perpetuating violence towards them as individuals, but the point is that it is impossible to make a judgment about violence without taking the history of conquest and enslavement into account. Such a judgment would presuppose that experience is "neutral" and untainted by historical conditions. We know, however, that individuals experience the world in fundamentally different ways and to project some external standpoint is not only intellectually dishonest, but shows the unwillingness of white people in certain circles to think outside of themselves in attempt to absolve them of any culpability. When history is taken into account, the label of "violence" pasted to the actions taken by the movement for Black Lives simply disintegrates.

Many are comfortable condemning violence outright, but this position is in contradiction with equality. To condemn violence outright, one must either deny that structural racism exists or equivocate Black Lives Matter with the alt-right on the basis that both are groups attempting to secure racial supremacy. The implication is that the existing society is equal, and that any attempt to disrupt this equality from either group should be condemned outright. Along with historical injustice, the social scientific consensus is that deep structural inequalities - along racial lines - pervade contemporary society. It is therefore clear that Black Lives Matter and the alt-right are not operating in a "neutral" dynamic. The existing power relations are conditioned by history and the alt-right is clearly starting from a historically advantaged position. Thus, to advocate equality, the rational solution is to denounce the alt-right and support the movement for black lives.

Roy Brooks describes this situation as a poker game. Two players at the table, one white and one black, have been playing a single poker for four hundred years. The entire time the white player has been cheating and has acquired a substantial amount of chips that allows him to push the black player around, despite having poor cards. One day the white player admits that he has been cheating and decides that he is no longer going to do so. From here on out he wants the game to be fair. Astonished, the black player asks, "Well, what are you doing to do with all those chips?" The white player responds, "Keep them for the next generation, of course!" Although the white player claims he wants the game to be played fairly from here on out, he is unwilling to distribute his chips equally to the other player and thus is unwilling to relinquish the power dynamic that plays in his favor. While the white player seems to be advocating for a fair and equal poker game, his unwillingness to split the chips shows that he is merely paying lip service to the notion of fairness. For the game to be played fairly, both players have to start from a neutral position which is undermined by the white player maintaining possession of his chips (Roy Brooks, Atonement and Forgiveness p. 36).

Many white people would consider redistributing the chips an act of violence. After all, they are not responsible for their ancestors cheating, so they should be able to keep the chips that have been acquired throughout history. They should not pay the price if they themselves did not commit the action. To hold them responsible for something they didn't do is perceived as an act of violence in itself. Of course, the redistribution of power (through reparations) will appear as an act of violence only because the power structures do not affect white people in the same way as it does minorities. White people are ignorant of the empirical fact that the existing power structure disproportionally impacts minorities not merely in terms of beliefs, but in terms of material consequences. Furthermore, this position is fundamentally incompatible with fairness and equality and glaringly ahistorical.

That the existing power structures function to maintain white supremacy is not a belief or an idea, but is rather an empirical fact about our social and political reality. It is the duty of white people to not only grasp this reality but to fight against it in the name of equality, or to accept being labeled a fascist. Part of this struggle is suppressing the very hate groups and their rhetoric that led to this un-level playing field in the first place. It is simply impossible to refrain from denouncing white supremacist groups while defending equality. If one truly hopes to achieve a social reality where all people are equal, then it is our duty not to allow such hate in our communities and to actively fight against it. If this results in broken windows and burning cars, it is the responsibility of the defenders of equality to understand that such actions are not "violent" insofar as they are not directed at sentient beings, but the power structures that suppress the freedom of sentient beings who have historically been marginalized. These structures are the original purveyors of violence and continuously impede the advance toward equality.