"Resistance Always Has a Utility in Time" - Abdaljawad Omar
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
Release Date: 12/10/2023
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
This is part two of a two-part episode. This part of the conversation deals more with the actions that led to Mann's political imprisoment and his experiences as a political prisoner. In this two-part episode, we are joined by special cohost PM, and we speak with veteran civil rights organizer Eric Mann about his journey from his upbringing in New York to his involvement in political struggles during the 1960s. Mann discusses his early influences, including his parents' activism. He reflects on his work with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating...
info_outlineMillennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this two-part episode, we are joined by special cohost PM, and we speak with veteran civil rights organizer Eric Mann about his journey from his upbringing in New York to his involvement in political struggles during the 1960s. Mann discusses his early influences, including his parents' activism. He reflects on his work with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), highlighting key campaigns such as the Trailways boycott and the 1968 Columbia University student strike. Mann also recounts his time as a political prisoner, offering...
info_outlineMillennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this conversation we talk with Garrett Felber about their latest book . In discussing this new political biography, we cover Sostre’s ideological and political journey, history as a jailhouse lawyer, his forms of organizing practice, and the ways that people supported his campaign for freedom from political imprisonment. We talk about the influence of Great Depression era Harlem, Black and Puerto Rican Nationalism, Marxism-Leninism, national liberation movements, armed struggle, Women’s Liberation, and Anarchism on Sostre’s political thought and practice. Although much of what...
info_outlineMillennials Are Killing Capitalism
This is the conclusion of our two part conversation with Tariq Khan on his book . In of the conversation we laid out many of the general dynamics between anti-indigenous settler colonial violence in the 19th Century and the development of the earliest iterations of anticommunism in the so-called United States, long before McCarthyism or even what’s recognized by historians as the first Red Scare. In this conversation we talk about some of the legal precedents that the Trump administration has dusted off for some of his attempts to remove or exclude people for political views. Because...
info_outlineMillennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode, we speak with Edward Ongweso Jr about "artificial intelligence" and its implications, particularly concerning corporate interests and historical parallels with labor control. Edward critiques the term “artificial intelligence” for obscuring the underlying digital technologies and algorithmic systems that serve corporate agendas, emphasizing the narrow view of intelligence that excludes human cognitive elements. The conversation delves into the historical roots of computation, drawing parallels between modern AI and 19th-century plantation management techniques aimed at...
info_outlineMillennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Charles H.F. Davis III about the increasingly repressive conditions on university campuses, particularly in the context of Columbia University's caving in to federal pressures under the thumb of Trump’s administration. We explore the broader implications of these concessions at the expense of liberalized notions of intellectual and academic freedom, student activism, and the role of universities as sites of political struggle. Dr. Davis highlights the historical and ongoing repression of student activism, particularly pro-Palestinian movements, and...
info_outlineMillennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode we interview Tariq Khan on his book The Republic Shall Be Kept Clean: How Settler Colonial Violence Shaped Antileft Repression. We’ll be releasing this conversation as a two part episode on this excellent book which studies how anticommunism within the US is deeply intertwined with settler colonialism, anti-indigenous thought, and genocidal violence. This helps us to reframe our often twentieth century centric view of anti-left repression in the US. Khan’s work on the 19th century in particular also helps us to see the ways things like race science, eugenics, and...
info_outlineMillennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode, we speak with Khadijah Haynes about her recent piece, "A Fetus on the Dirt Road” which offers a sharp critique of Western feminism's complicity in imperialism and its historical roots in racial violence. Haynes argues that Western feminism often obscures the struggles of both Black women and men, relying on colonial and anti-Black logics that fail to address the broader context of sexualized, gendered, and racialized abuses of all Black African people. We discuss other historical and contemporary critiques of feminism, argue that feminism does not have a...
info_outlineMillennials Are Killing Capitalism
In this episode, recorded mid-2024, we speak with Ted Rutland about the evolution of policing from the mid-20th century's professional model to the counterinsurgency urbanism that emerged in the 1970s and 80s in Canada. Rutland discusses how community policing, initially intended to bring police closer to communities through multicultural training and social services, became a strategy to win over parts of the community while waging a larger war against the rest. We delve into some of the historical shifts in policing largely as a response to radical movements and urban...
info_outlineMillennials Are Killing Capitalism
This is the conclusion of our two part conversation with Maryam Kashani on her book Among other things, in this conversation we talk about the impact and meaning of 1492 to the Muslim world. We discuss Kashani’s concept of the Blues Adhan by way of Clyde Woods. We discuss the experiences of women muslims, and women scholars in Kashani’s book. We talk about the two jihads and other Muslim practices such as zakat and the contradictions between Islamic thought and practice and those demanded by the capitalist and carceral state. It’s a rich discussion that I hope folks find as interesting...
info_outlineIn this episode we welcome Abdaljawad Omar back to the podcast.
This is another slightly edited livestream that we’ve converted to an audio podcast. You can check out the video on our YouTube channel, we’ll put that link in the show notes. And Also just to note that we’ve continued to put lots of content out there, including an interview with Boots Riley from The Coup also the director and creator of the film Sorry To Bother You and the hit series I’m A Virgo. We talked to him about labor organizing, the strike wave, solidarity with Palestine and getting principled anticapitalist art through the gauntlet that is Hollywood.
I really wanted to get an audio version of this episode with Abdaljawad out this week. Many will know that Refaat Alareer was assassinated this week by the Israeli military. And while we don’t talk about Refaat in this conversation directly, I needed to go back and listen again to Abdaljawad’s commentary on resistance and on mourning and melancholy in the Palestinian context. I hope that this conversation will be therapeutic for others in a way that enables you to continue to put one foot in front of the other and continue to struggle and resist in whatever capacity you can. And in doing so I hope that we can honor Refaat memory and all of the thousands of other martyrs as we continue to seek to find courageous ways support the struggle for Palestinian liberation, which is an important front in the struggle for the liberation of all people.
Just a note this conversation was recorded back on November 30th amid the prisoner exchanges, so if that portion of the conversation where we discuss that feels a bit dated that is the reason why, but it still feels like an important and pertinent discussion nonetheless. We will include the pieces we discussed in the show notes.
Lastly I will say that we are launching our Sylvia Wynter study group in the beginning of January you can find out more about that on patreon, and becoming a patron is the best way to support the show, but also to keep up with all of our episodes whether they are released first on YouTube or via this podcast feed.
Links:
"Can the Palestinian Mourn?" - Abdaljawad Omar's piece (the primary subject of discussion)
Judith Butler "The Compass of Mourning" (the piece Abdaljawad responds to)
Fundraiser for Sekou Odinga (mentioned in episode)