Episode 43: Serving The People with Delency and Blake from Hella Black Podcast
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
Release Date: 12/16/2019
The Revolt Eclipses Whatever The World Has to Offer with Idris Robinson
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode, we are joined by Idris Robinson to unpack his book, , a searing meditation on race, revolt, civil war, and the psychic wreckage of American life. Reflecting on the 2020 uprisings, Robinson challenges the myth of Black leadership, reframes racial violence through the lens of a “morbid libidinal economy,” and argues that revolution is as much a transformation of the human spirit as it is a political event. Drawing on the legacies of Black insurgency, Robinson interrogates liberalism, identity politics, and the hollowing out of American cities—while pondering on what it...
info_outline
The Long Transition to Socialism & Unequal Exchange with Torkil Lauesen
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode, longtime revolutionary activist and author Torkil Lauesen returns to the show. Our conversation revolves around two of his recent works published by Iskra Books: and . Drawing on a lifetime of political engagement and his close relationship with theorist Arghiri Emmanuel, Lauesen discusses his motivation for writing these books as a means of passing down hard-won knowledge to a new generation of organizers. We examine the “long transition” from capitalism to socialism, a process Lauesen frames through the lens of historical materialism. He also explains how the transfer...
info_outline
Spring Surge to Melt ICE: Dare to Struggle on Building Organized Mass Resistance to Smash the Deportation Machine
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode, we are joined by organizers from Dare to Struggle, a multinational organization committed to struggling against all forms of domination. Throughout this conversation we discuss some of their tactics deployed in response to the recent uptick in ICE raids happening nationally. We take a critical look at what has been effective and what has not, and the stakes for those who are daring to struggle against the deportation machine are up against. We also discuss their recent calls for a Spring Surge to melt ice, please check out the show notes to see how you can connect and get...
info_outline
"Death Itself Is On Sale" - Ali Kadri on The Accumulation of Waste
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this conversation a group of us interviewed Dr. Ali Kadri about his book The Accumulation of Waste: A Political Economy of Systemic Destruction. This conversation was the final discussion in a study group which began last October and involved participants from all over the world. The book provides a theoretical framework which understands waste as a value making process where war-making, the wasting of social classes, and the wasting of social nature become central to capitalist accumulation and to how capital resolves crises in accumulation. The questions in this discussion were those that...
info_outline
Queen Mother Audley Moore: Midwife of Black Revolutionary Nationalism with Dr. Ashley D Farmer
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Ashley Farmer to discuss the life and legacy of Queen Mother Audley Moore—an organizer, theorist, and political visionary who helped shape the very foundations of modern Black nationalism and the contemporary reparations movement. Though she was, as our guest writes, “one of the most important activists and theorists of the twentieth century,” Mother Moore’s figure has been largely confined to a handful of photographs and passing references, even as her ideas reverberate across generations. Dr. Farmer discusses how if Rosa Parks is remembered as...
info_outline
Resisting the Surveillance Systems Behind ICE’s Kidnappings with Ed Vogel
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this conversation we speak with Ed Vogel from Southerners Against Surveillance Systems & Infrastructure about the rapid expansion of various police surveillance programs. We talk about the nexus of private corporations, policing agencies, and nonprofit foundations and organizations that facilitate the expansion of these technologies and how they seek to circumvent democratic processes and oversight mechanisms. We discuss ICE, Customs & Border Patrol, Atlanta’s Cop City, Shot Spotter, Flock Safety, Fusus, and automated license plate readers. Ed also talks about what we do and...
info_outline
Lebanon's Split Condition of Grief Under Domination with Wassila Abboud
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode we are joined by Wassila Abboud to discuss her essay, "." Our conversation begins with her meditations on grief in Lebanon. We explore how people often name today’s grief through the language of past griefs — and what this transference between past and present reveals about the psyche under domination. From there, we turn to Walter Benjamin’s “angel of history” and why Abboud argues this analogy fails to capture Lebanon’s relationship to catastrophe. We discuss why so many returns cluster around 1982, how that year fractured grief itself, reshaping collective...
info_outline
Rootedness and the Black Commune with Austin Cole
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode, we’re joined by Austin Cole to discuss the three-part series Black/African Liberation & Grassroots Economies, beginning with part one: “Rootedness for our people, our economies, our liberation.” We start with Toni Morrison’s concept of rootedness and how it informs urban planning and economic development. From there, we’ll dig into Strategies of Counter-war—how fascists are shaping local policy, and how BAP-Baltimore is building alternatives from the ground up. We examine the threat of elite capture and the strategic use of municipal power: how can engagement...
info_outline
Give Warmth To Gaza with Hala Sabbah of The Sameer Project (Live Audio)
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
This is the audio from a video we hosted with Hala Sabbah from The Sameer Project on December 3rd, 2025. Hala returned to the program to talk about life in Gaza nearly two months into the so-called "ceasefire." We spoke about the realities on the ground and the needs of people in Gaza right now, what is getting into the strip and what is not, and how the Sameer Project is working within the current conditions in Gaza. We also talk about the need for continued organizing, boycotts, and direct action against the zionist entity. And we spoke about creative ways people can fundraise for Sameer...
info_outline
From Phosphate Mining to Forever Chemicals With the Lowcountry Action Committee
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode, we are joined by organizers from the Lowcountry Action Committee to discuss climate justice in South Carolina’s Lowcountry. We begin with a discussion about climate reparations and the state's unfortunate priorities. We go on to explore the history of phosphate mining and its exploitation of newly emancipated Africans, the ecological destruction it caused, and its legacy of environmental racism. We then turn to hurricane season and the anxiety it provokes in vulnerable working-class and poor Black communities, followed by the toxic legacy of military pollution and...
info_outlineIn this episode, we got the opportunity to sit down with two amazing organizers and fellow radical podcast hosts. If you’re not familiar, Hella Black Podcast is an Oakland based audio experience brought to you by Delency Parham and Blake Simons. Their hope for each episode is to educate and inform their listeners about all things related to Blackness. Their podcast is important because it uplifts the voices of Black radical organizers who are doing the work in the field.
We talk to Blake and Delency about their own politicization, and how Hella Black Podcast got started. They talk to us about their organizing with People’s Breakfast Oakland, and what it was like to have Colin Kaepernick stop by and work with them on his birthday.
We discuss Blake's relationship to Jalil Muntaqim and the ongoing struggles of political prisoners in the US.
We also talk about the uptick of presidential organizing with the election, and their own disappointment with folks putting so effort into that arena of organizing.
Delency and Blake also share their own thoughts on the necessity of aligning theory to practice and getting involved at the grassroots level, even if it’s on the smallest scale.