Manning Marable

Speaking Truth To Power : Essays On Race, Resistance, And Radicalism

Introduction: toward a political autobiography of a race concept - from black nationalism to multicultural democracy. Part 1 Race: the politics of black protest assault on black equality toward independent black politics the Tchula Seven - harvest of hate in the Mississippi Delta the paradox of reform black politics and the democratic party the Jackson campaign - a critical assessment Free South Africa Movement - black Americas protest connections with South Africa black politics and the challenges for the left the rainbows choice- the man or the movement? race, identity and political culture race and class in the US presidential election. Part 2 Resistance: movements for peace and social justice nuclear war and black America peace and the colour line - Third World perspectives on coalitions and curricula flaws anticipated in document the future of the Cold War the quest for empire and the struggle for peace and justice. Part 3 Radical democracy: the crisis of socialism why black Americans are not socialists Zimbabwe and the problematic of African socialism race and democracy in Cuba black studies - Marxism and the black intellectual tradition towards an American socialism from below remaking American Marxism a new American socialism.

Racializing Obama: The Enigma of Post-Black Politics and Leadership

In the 1990s, a new race-neutral, “post-black” leadership of African Americans emerged who favored political pragmatism and centrist public policies. Barack Obama, Newark Mayor Corey Booker, and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick were representative of this group. During his successful 2008 presidential campaign, Obama minimized the issue of race, presenting a race-neutral politics that reached out to white Republicans and independents. Yet despite his post-racial orientation, critics repeatedly attempted to “racialize Obama,” questioning his racial authenticity, religious affiliations, and Americanism. Despite extremist attacks, Obama successfully won the election by building an unprecedented coalition of blacks, Latinos, Jews, Asian Americans, women, and youth. The question remains whether the pragmatic, centrist Obama will commit his government to oppose all forms of racial inequality and oppression.

The Political and Theoretical Contexts of the Changing Racial Terrain

t the first Pan-African Conference held in London in August 1900, the great AfricanAmerican scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, predicted that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.” Today, with the tragic and triumphant racial experiences of the twentieth century behind us, we may say from the vantage point of universal culture that the problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of “global apartheid,” the construction of new racialized ethnic hierarchies, discourses, and processes of domination and subordination in the context of economic globalization and neoliberal public policies. Within the more narrow context of the United States, the fundamental problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of “structural racism”: the deeply entrenched patterns of socioeconomic and political inequality and accumulated disadvantage that are coded by race and color and are consistently justified in public and private discourses by racist stereotypes, white indifference, and the prison industrial complex. African political scientist and anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani has observed that, beginning with the imposition of European colonial rule in Africa, “race was the central organizing principle of the development of the modern state.” This also holds true for

Katrina's Unnatural Disaster A Tragedy of Black Suffering and White Denial

The “unnatural disaster” of Hurricane Katrina is examined in the context of American structural racism. The Bush administrations lack of response in providing aid to the city of New Orleans and the public spectacle of Black anguish is a “civic ritual” that reconfirms the racial hierarchy of the United States. The denial by white America of the reality of Black suffering is essential to the preservation of white hegemony.

History and Black Consciousness: The Political Culture of Black America

The central theme of black U.S. history has been the constant struggle to overcome the barriers of race, and the reality of unequal racial identities between black and white. This racial bifurcation has created parallel realities or racial universes, in which blacks and whites may interact closely with one another, but perceive social reality in dramatically different ways. These collective experiences of discrimination, and this memory of resistance and oppression, have given rise to several overlapping group strategies or critical perspectives within the African-American community, which have as their objective the ultimate empowerment of black people. In this sense, the contours of struggle for black people have given rise to a very specific consciousness, a sense of our community, its needs and its aspirations for itself. The major ideological debates which map the dimensions of the political mind of black United States have always been about the orientation and objectives of black political culture and consciousness.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Reaganism, Racism, and Reaction: Black Political Realignment in the 1980s

racism and capitalist economic reaction provide the terrain for black struggle in the 1980s. Under the Reagan Administration, American capitalism is currently attempting to respond to a profound structural crisis within the system. Reagans bestial affirmative action policies and cutbacks in health care, welfare, and social services are only secondary aspects of a more basic effort to accelerate the

Black Politics and the Challenges for the Left

In the 1980s, there were two fundamental responses by African-Americans to the economic and social crisis generated by Reaganism. The first was represented at the local level by the mayoral campaigns of Harold Washington in Chicago and Mel King in Boston, and at the national level by the Rainbow presidential campaigns of Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988. These electoral campaigns were the products of democratic social protest movements, the consequence of thousands of protests against plant closings, cutbacks in housing, healthcare, and jobs, racial discrimination in the courts, and political process at the local level. The Jackson campaigns were a revolt against both Reaganism in the Republican Party and the capitulation of the Democratic Party to the repressive policies of the Reagan administration. In capitalist societies with parliamentary governments, the Rainbow campaign would have been expressed as a multiracial, left social democratic party, a political formation calling for the state to eliminate racial discrimination and disparities of income between people of color and whites and to expand federal expenditures for human needs, employment, and education.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Crisis of Black Leadership: Introduction to an International Symposium

‘‘Power’’ in the realm of politics is the capacity of a group to realize its specific, objective interests. ‘‘Leaders’’ are the principal agents to craft strategies and tactics to achieve power for their constituencies. In the context of recent Black history, both within the United States and transnationally, there has been a marked decline in the political effectiveness and accountability of ‘‘Black leaders’’ to Black constituencies. Political scientists and public policy analysts have debated the complicated reasons for this breakdown of Black leadership, but few disagree with the view that Black political movements are less effective in achieving concrete objectives than a half century ago, during the classic struggles to overturn colonialism, Jim Crow segregation, and South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime. From the vantage point of contemporary Black history, modern African–American leadership inside the United States emerged with two critical events. The first was a legal victory—the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the legality of racially segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education in May, 1954. The high court declared in its ruling ‘‘that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.’’ The following year, the Supreme Court urged the adoption of desegregation plans by public schools ‘‘with all deliberate speed.’’ The Brown victory was the culmination of decades of legal and political efforts by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and other civil rights groups. Finally, over ninety years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans could demand of the federal government their Constitutional right to a quality education for their children, without the barriers and material inequities of ‘‘Jim Crow,’’ the U.S. version of racial apartheid. The second political event occurred in Montgomery, Alabama, on 1 December 1955, when Rosa Parks, a respected seamstress and a NAACP local activist, refused to relinquish her seat to a white man, while riding on a segregated public bus. Local Black labor union leader E. D. Nixon, outraged by Parks’ arrest, urged the African–American community to stage a one-day boycott of Montgomery’s buses. A Black professional women’s group, the Women’s Political Council led by educator Jo Ann Robinson, was largely responsible

Racism in a Time of Terror

t is still mourning time here in New York City. It has been several months since the terrorist attack destroyed the World Trade Center towers, but the tragedy remains brutally fresh and terribly vivid to millions of residents in this overcrowded metropolis. The horrific spectra of 3,000 human beings incinerated in less than 100 minutes, of screaming people free-falling more than a thousand feet to their deaths cannot be comprehended or even explained. As I first witnessed the smoke billowing across the city’s skyline, I knew that the criminals who had obliterated the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon were attempting to make a symbolic political statement about the links between transnational capitalism and U.S. militarism. But by initiating acts of mass murder, any shred of political credibility sought by those who plotted and carried out these crimes was totally destroyed. There can be no justification, excuse, or rationale for the deliberate use of deadly force and unprovoked violence against any civilian population. This was not essentially an act of war, but a criminal act, a crime against not only the American people, but all of humanity. All of those who planned, financed, and assisted in carrying out these crimes must be apprehended and brought to justice—but, I would add, under the aegis of international law and the United Nations. In the immediate days following the terrorist attacks, some elements of the sectarian U.S. left, including a few black activists, took the bizarre position that those who carried out these crimes were somehow “freedom fighters.” These “left” critics implied that these vicious, indiscriminate actions must be interpreted within the political context of the oppression that gave rise to those actions. In short, the brutal reality of U.S. imperialism, including America’s frequent military occupation of Third World countries, somehow justifies the use of political terrorism as a legitimate avenue for expressing their political resistance. It is certainly true that the American left must vigorously and I Racism in a Time of Terror

Marxism, Memory, and the Black Radical Tradition: Introduction to Volume 13

Black political culture in the United States during the 19th century was divided between integrationist and black nationalist ideology. Following Reconstruction, however, a third political tradition emerged, Black Radicalism. This intellectual tradition was characterized by sharp opposition to institutional racism, class inequality, and womens oppression. The chief architect of early Black Radicalism was W.E.B. Du Bois. In subsequent generations of Black Radicals, key figures included C.L.R. James, Hubert H. Harrison, A. Philip Randolph, and Oliver Cromwell-Cox. Most of these intellectuals had a relationship to socialist or Marxism political organizations parties. The article traces three generations of Black Radicals who emerged following World War II. The first of these generations emerged during the Civil Rights and Black Power periods, and included Amiri Baraka, Walter Rodney, and James Baldwin. The second generation, women and men born between 1946 and 1964, prominently include Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Lani Guinier, Patricia Williams, and Charles Ogletree. Finally, the hip-hop culture of the late 20th century produced a new school of activist intellectuals, such as Robin D.G. Kelley and Melissa Harris-Lacewell. These generations of Black Radicals are connected by the memory of resistance to racism and to the integration of gender race and class in their analysis. What is unsolved is whether this radical tradition will continue in the age of globalized capitalism.