<html>
  <head>

    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
  </head>
  <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
    <div id="container" class="container font-size5">
      <div style="display: block;" id="reader-header" class="header"> <font
          size="-2"><a
href="http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/black-art-matters-roundtable-black-radical-imaginatio"
            id="reader-domain" class="domain">http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/black-art-matters-roundtable-black-radical-imaginatio</a></font>
        <h1 id="reader-title">Black Art Matters: A Roundtable On the
          Black Radical Imagination</h1>
        <div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Walidah Imarisha, Robin
          D.G. Kelly and Jonathan Horstmann interviewed by Red Wedge - <span
            class="date">July 26, 2016</span></div>
      </div>
      <div class="content">
        <div style="display: block;" id="moz-reader-content">
          <div
xml:base="http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/black-art-matters-roundtable-black-radical-imaginatio"
            id="readability-page-1" class="page">
            <div id="canvas">
              <section data-edit-main-image="Banner"
                data-collection-id="55cf4bfce4b000da57b8a1cc"
                data-content-field="main-content" role="main"
                class="clear" id="page">
                <div class="article-wrapper"
                  id="yui_3_17_2_1_1469727426343_278">
                  <article data-item-id="57866e35be6594dfb4537d22"
                    id="article-57866e35be6594dfb4537d22" class="hentry
                    promoted promoted-block-image category-interviews
                    category-july-2016 tag-black-lives-matter
                    tag-black-liberation tag-racism tag-art
                    tag-literature tag-music tag-poetry
author-walidah-imarisha-robin-dg-kelly-and-jonathan-horstmann-interviewed-by-red-wedge
                    post-type-text">
                    <header> </header>
                    <div class="body entry-content"
                      id="yui_3_17_2_1_1469727426343_298">
                      <div id="item-57866e35be6594dfb4537d22"
                        data-updated-on="1468427871814" data-type="item"
                        data-layout-label="Post Body" class="sqs-layout
                        sqs-grid-12 columns-12">
                        <div class="row sqs-row"
                          id="yui_3_17_2_1_1469727426343_297">
                          <div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"
                            id="yui_3_17_2_1_1469727426343_296">
                            <div id="block-9673bc948ad77583f3f6"
                              data-block-type="2" class="sqs-block
                              html-block sqs-block-html">
                              <div class="sqs-block-content">
                                <p><em>Can America ever truly face its
                                    racism – both past and present – for
                                    what it truly is? Or is the history
                                    of forced migration, bondage and
                                    slave labor, legal apartheid,
                                    incarceration and horrific state
                                    violence too much for it to survive
                                    such a revelation? Can it endure the
                                    psychic shock and endeavor in some
                                    kind of pursuit of truth or
                                    reconciliation? Or will it simply
                                    implode, come apart at the seams and
                                    make way for something new?
                                    Something which, hopefully, would
                                    not have genocide running through
                                    its veins? Langston Hughes tells of
                                    a man urging us to “let America be
                                    America again,” but Hughes is not so
                                    sure such an America ever existed.
                                    Neither should anyone today.</em></p>
                                <p><em>These are just few questions
                                    conducive to a vast, intricate Black
                                    Radical Imagination. The concept is
                                    not a new one, but may raise more
                                    eyebrows now than in quite some
                                    time. With the Black Lives Matter
                                    movement insisting that the struggle
                                    for African America’s humanity is
                                    not over, there is incontrovertibly
                                    both more to fight for and more to
                                    imagine. The phrase itself is, as
                                    this roundtable suggests, amorphous,
                                    slippery. For some it might conjure
                                    up images of jazz singers decrying
                                    lynching. For others it might be
                                    young graffiti artists stealing
                                    across train tracks, leaving dynamic
                                    anti-police missives on walls. In
                                    all cases it is pregnant with
                                    dynamic, dangerous potential far
                                    more deserving and substantive than
                                    the vague, hollow promise of “the
                                    American Dream.”</em></p>
                                <p><em>Walidah Imarisha is an author,
                                    poet activist and educator who has
                                    taught at Portland and Oregon State
                                    Universities. Her writing has
                                    appeared in several books and
                                    anthologies. Most recently she has
                                    co-edited Octavia’s Brood: Science
                                    Fiction Stories From Social Justice
                                    Movements (AK Press/IAS) and is the
                                    author of Angels With Dirty Faces:
                                    Three Stories of Crime, Prison and
                                    Redemption (AK Press/IAS).</em></p>
                                <p><em>Jonathan Horstmann </em><em>is a
                                    recording artist, social justice
                                    activist, videographer, actor, and
                                    illustrator based in Austin, Texas.
                                    He is one half of the futurepunk
                                    group BLXPLTN. The group’s first
                                    album Black Cop Down was released in
                                    the fall of 2014 and received wide
                                    critical acclaim. Their new album,
                                    New York Fascist Week, will be
                                    released in 2016.</em></p>
                                <p><em>Robin D.G. Kelley is the author
                                    and editor of more than ten books on
                                    the subject of radical history, art,
                                    music and the Black struggle around
                                    the globe. These include Hammer and
                                    Hoe: Alabama Communists During the
                                    Great Depression (University of
                                    North Carolina Press), Thelonious
                                    Monk: The Life and Times of An
                                    American Original (The Free Press),
                                    and Freedom Dreams: The Black
                                    Radical Imagination (Beacon Press).
                                    He is the Gary B. Nash Professor of
                                    American History at UCLA.</em></p>
                              </div>
                            </div>
                            <div
                              id="block-yui_3_17_2_2_1468694262846_29348"
                              data-block-type="2" class="sqs-block
                              html-block sqs-block-html">
                              <div class="sqs-block-content">
                                <p><em>The three were kind enough
                                    discuss with Red Wedge their takes
                                    on the meaning, history and
                                    potential of the Black Radical
                                    Imagination.</em></p>
                                <p>* * *</p>
                                <p><strong>Just starting out very
                                    broadly: using the term “Black
                                    Radical Imagination” can come off as
                                    somewhat nebulous to the uninitiated
                                    and practitioners alike. How would
                                    you describe the Black Radical
                                    Imagination? What comes to mind –
                                    both in a contemporary and
                                    historical sense – when you hear
                                    that term?</strong></p>
                                <p><strong>Walidah Imarisha:</strong>
                                  When I think of the term “Black
                                  Radical Imagination,” I think of that
                                  force that has kept Black folks not
                                  only alive physically, but able to
                                  dream of new and better worlds while
                                  their bodies dwelled in hell. It is
                                  the Black Radical Imagination that
                                  also gave our ancestors the fortitude
                                  to pull those better worlds out of the
                                  ether and painstakingly build them
                                  into our lived realities.</p>
                                <p>I also think about the
                                  responsibility, right, and privilege
                                  those who came before us claimed for
                                  us to do the same, to envision new
                                  just futures, and then do the hard
                                  work of bringing them into existence.
                                  We can’t build what we cannot first
                                  imagine, and so our survival is our
                                  Black Radical Imagination time
                                  traveling, bringing us the resistance
                                  of the past, bringing us the
                                  brilliance of the future. As was said
                                  in <em>Star Trek: Deep Space 9</em>,
                                  we are the dreamer and the dream.</p>
                                <p><strong>Jonathan Horstmann: </strong>I
                                  think Black activists have always
                                  thought outside the box when it comes
                                  to organizing for radical equality.
                                  Think of hip-hop's origins. Think of
                                  Black Lives Matter tactics. We create
                                  global cultural movements, we shut
                                  down freeways. The Black voice is
                                  forced to be imaginative because
                                  otherwise it will be silenced.</p>
                                <p><strong>Robin D.G. Kelley: </strong>By
                                  employing the phrase the “Black
                                  Radical Imagination” in my book <em>Freedom
                                    Dreams</em>, I was referring to the
                                  ways in which Black Leftists, some
                                  nationalists, feminists, surrealists,
                                  etc., envisioned collectively, in
                                  struggle, what a revolutionary future
                                  might look like and how we might bring
                                  this new world into being. Contrary to
                                  misreadings of my book, I was not
                                  referring to some kind of dreamstate
                                  but arguing that we cannot divorce
                                  critical analysis from social
                                  movements. It is not enough to imagine
                                  a world without oppression (especially
                                  since we don’t always recognize the
                                  variety of forms or modes in which
                                  oppression occurs), but understanding
                                  the mechanisms or processes that not
                                  only reproduce structural inequality
                                  but make them common sense, and render
                                  those processes natural or invisible.
                                  The Black Radical Imagination is not a
                                  thing but a process, the ideas
                                  generated from what Gramsci calls a
                                  “philosophy of practice.” It is about
                                  how people in transformative social
                                  movements, moved/shifted their ideas,
                                  rethought inherited categories, tried
                                  to locate and overturn blatant,
                                  subtle, and invisible modes of
                                  domination.</p>
                              </div>
                            </div>
                            <div
                              id="block-yui_3_17_2_2_1468694262846_26332"
                              data-block-type="2" class="sqs-block
                              html-block sqs-block-html">
                              <div class="sqs-block-content">
                                <p>But what makes it “Black Radical”?
                                  What is the Black Radical Tradition?
                                  Cedric Robinson describes it as “the
                                  revolutionary consciousness that
                                  proceeded from the whole historical
                                  experience of Black people” and not
                                  merely formed by capitalist slavery
                                  and colonialism. It questions the
                                  capacity of racial capitalism to
                                  re-make African social life and
                                  succeed in generating new categories
                                  of human experience stripped bare of
                                  the historical consciousness embedded
                                  in culture. Black revolts, the
                                  expression of the Black radical
                                  imagination, were not necessarily
                                  formed by the logic of Western
                                  capitalism. But has modern racial
                                  capitalism formed in the afterlife of
                                  slavery so thoroughly shaped our
                                  consciousness as to make the kind of
                                  radical epistemologies Robinson
                                  identifies almost impossible to
                                  produce? Consider just how easy it is
                                  to fall into neoliberal logic of
                                  racial uplift, entrepreneurship,
                                  “branding,” or even the restoration of
                                  the liberal Keynesian welfare state as
                                  our movement’s main objective! This is
                                  why <em>discovering</em> and
                                  recuperating the Black radical
                                  tradition/imagination is so <em>necessary</em>
                                  – not in order to reproduce it but to
                                  understand its logic and fundamental
                                  demand: a complete critique of Western
                                  civilization and, as Fanon put it, a
                                  disordering of our current (colonial)
                                  social order.</p>
                                <p>That said, woman of color feminisms,
                                  certain autonomous and indigenous
                                  movements in the Americas, best
                                  grasp/exhibit the black radical
                                  tradition, what it means to go there,
                                  to the root. For example, The Combahee
                                  River Collective statement was not a
                                  call for a race and gender integrated
                                  social democracy but a deeper
                                  disordering of racist, capitalist
                                  heteropatriarchy that required a
                                  remaking of the whole of life, of
                                  centering life on multiple forms of
                                  reproduction and the body and
                                  pleasure. It argued that a non-racist,
                                  non-sexist society could not be
                                  created under capitalism, nor could
                                  the socialism alone dismantle the
                                  structures of racial, gender, and
                                  sexual domination. The struggle wasn’t
                                  just the public fight in the streets
                                  or the public fight for
                                  representation, nor was it just
                                  socialism defined as providing
                                  resources in a very public way –
                                  decent jobs, collective labor. The
                                  Statement made connections between
                                  production, reproduction, household
                                  labor, the exploitation of children,
                                  sexual violence and sexual freedom –
                                  issues that rarely find a place on the
                                  agenda of a lot of Black nationalist
                                  organizations, let alone socialist
                                  ones.</p>
                                <p><strong>Over the past few years there
                                    seems to be a resurgent interest in
                                    wider circles about notions like
                                    Afrofuturism, the Afropunk movement,
                                    so on and so forth. What do you
                                    think this can be attributed to? Is
                                    it the rise of Black Lives Matter or
                                    are there other factors at play as
                                    well? How much do the cultural
                                    differences between our time and,
                                    say, the Sixties, shake out in terms
                                    of this current artistic moment?</strong></p>
                                <p><strong>Walidah:</strong> I think
                                  these pieces have always been there,
                                  these are just the names we have hung
                                  on them at this juncture. This is
                                  ancient knowledge, whether it is the
                                  non-linear way different African
                                  cultures thought of time as explored
                                  in the anthology <em>Black Quantum
                                    Futurisms</em>, or Sun-Ra’s Saturn
                                  ciphers. We have always manifested
                                  these ideas, whether it was W.E.B. Du
                                  Bois writing science fiction in his
                                  short story “The Comet,” or Bad Brains
                                  created hardcore. I grew up as a Black
                                  person listening to punk music and
                                  reading science fiction, and it felt
                                  to me these were the places where I
                                  had the opportunity to claim myself
                                  and make of me what I would. Where I
                                  could step beyond what I was being
                                  told I was by the larger society as a
                                  Black woman, and instead decide for
                                  myself who I will be.</p>
                              </div>
                            </div>
                            <div
                              id="block-yui_3_17_2_2_1468694262846_16974"
                              data-block-type="2" class="sqs-block
                              html-block sqs-block-html">
                              <div class="sqs-block-content">
                                <p>I think movements for justice always
                                  feed art and creativity, and vice
                                  versa. So absolutely Black Lives
                                  Matter is part of that. As my <em>Octavia’s
                                    Brood </em>co-editor adrienne maree
                                  brown talks about, even the name is
                                  visionary science fiction, because to
                                  the mainstream, Black lives don’t
                                  matter. But we can dream of that
                                  world, we can envision a world where
                                  they do, and then we connect with the
                                  ways that world has been dreamt of and
                                  build by those who came before us, and
                                  add our pieces to it. Black Lives
                                  Matter on their website a few months
                                  ago asked folks to submit responses to
                                  the prompt “In a world where Black
                                  lives matter, I imagine…” They were
                                  offering all of us the opportunity to
                                  engage in collective ideation, so we
                                  can begin to pull that world into
                                  existence.</p>
                                <p><strong>Jonathan: </strong>Blackness
                                  has long been exoticized, and not with
                                  the most convenient consequences to
                                  say the least. I am wary of this
                                  resurgent interest in “all things
                                  Black” unless it translates into
                                  actions taken towards Black
                                  liberation.</p>
                                <p><strong>Robin: </strong>I cannot say
                                  for sure, only speculate. First, I
                                  can’t see a direct correlation between
                                  Afrofuturism and the rise of Black
                                  Lives Matter because I am of the
                                  minority opinion that neither is so
                                  new. Versions of Afrofuturism were
                                  already here, embraced, debated,
                                  struggled over throughout much of the
                                  20th century. My chapter on surrealism
                                  in Freedom Dreams gestures at this,
                                  but so does the first chapter “In
                                  Search of the New Land” which links
                                  Sun Ra and Marcus Garvey. Afrofuturism
                                  is wonderful; it is also a new word
                                  for a longer Black radical tradition
                                  of Marronage, seeking out free space,
                                  liberated territory. Read Neil
                                  Roberts’s remarkable book, <em>Freedom
                                    as Marronage</em> and you will see
                                  this pretty clearly.</p>
                                <p>Second, I don’t see Black Lives
                                  Matter as a sudden break from the
                                  movements that arose in the 1990s and
                                  early 2000s in opposition to
                                  Clinton-era neoliberalism. True, the
                                  eruption in Ferguson gave the movement
                                  against police violence a boost, but
                                  organized struggle against police
                                  violence goes way back, and many of
                                  those activists worked on a variety of
                                  racial, economic, social justice
                                  issue. I contend that they helped lay
                                  the foundations for the Battle in
                                  Seattle (1999), the U.S. Social Forum,
                                  Immigrant rights demonstrations of
                                  2006, and ultimately Occupy. They
                                  include the Labor/Community Strategy
                                  Center and the various organizations
                                  they formed (i.e., the Bus Riders
                                  Union), POWER (People Organized to Win
                                  Employment Rights), Critical
                                  Resistance, SOUL (School of Unity and
                                  Liberation), the Black Radical
                                  Congress, Organization for Black
                                  Struggle (St. Louis), the New York
                                  Taxi Workers Alliance, the Los Angeles
                                  Community Action Network, Miami
                                  Workers Center, Domestic Workers
                                  United, to name but a few.</p>
                                <p>The media is not interested in the
                                  genesis of movements or history;
                                  spontaneity gets higher ratings. But
                                  if you just scratch the surface a
                                  little, you’ll find that members of
                                  these organizations had some
                                  relationship with the current uprising
                                  – either as mentors or leaders of the
                                  new movements, including Occupy, Black
                                  Lives Matter, the Dreamers and 67
                                  Suenos, We Charge Genocide, the Dream
                                  Defenders, The Black Youth Project
                                  100, and the Community Rights Campaign
                                  in L.A. Indeed, just consider the fact
                                  that the three women who founded Black
                                  Lives Matter were movement veterans
                                  and had led organizations that
                                  specifically focused on immigrants and
                                  undocumented workers. Opal Tometi,
                                  herself the daughter of Nigerian
                                  immigrants, runs Black Alliance for
                                  Just Immigration; Alicia Garza,
                                  formerly director of POWER (People
                                  Organized to Win Employment Rights),
                                  went on to join the staff of the
                                  National Domestic Workers Alliance,
                                  which is made up of mostly Caribbean,
                                  African, Latina childcare and
                                  household workers; and Patrisse
                                  Cullors, a former lead organizer of
                                  the Labor/Community Strategy Center
                                  and founder of the Community Rights
                                  Campaign, which defends Latino and
                                  black students from police harassment
                                  and the increasing use of the criminal
                                  justice system to manage student
                                  behavior. Patrisse is now founding
                                  director of Dignity and Power Now, an
                                  organization is dedicated to
                                  protecting incarcerated people and
                                  their families in Los Angeles.</p>
                                <p>I can imagine that my answer might be
                                  read as an evasion of the question.
                                   On the contrary, I think we often err
                                  on the side of seeing movements
                                  erupting from elan or cultural trends
                                  without paying attention to
                                  organizing. We continue to do this at
                                  our peril, and when we do we follow
                                  the bourgeois media’s lead.</p>
                                <p><strong>Of course, as with anything
                                    that is created by people of color,
                                    there is a massive pull to sanitize
                                    African or African-American artistic
                                    expression and place it within a
                                    context that is very safe for a
                                    culture industry that likes to
                                    present itself as “color blind.”
                                    Would you say that’s a danger with
                                    this new artistic wave too? Do you
                                    think there’s a way in which the
                                    Radical Black Imagination bristles
                                    against being metabolized in such a
                                    way?</strong></p>
                                <p><strong>Walidah: </strong>I think
                                  the word “radical” is incredibly
                                  important in the phrase Radical Black
                                  Imagination. As Angela Davis tells us,
                                  radical literally means to get to the
                                  root of things. To understand
                                  something on a foundational
                                  fundamental level. If that is truly in
                                  practice, that cultural manifestation
                                  can’t be sanitized, because as I said
                                  before the roots of our Radical Black
                                  Imagination are in the vast cultural
                                  galaxy that has and does exist in
                                  Africa, in the freedom dreams of
                                  enslaved Black folks and the cultures
                                  and communities of visionary
                                  resistance they built, in the Black
                                  Liberation-era imaginings of what
                                  self-determination and global autonomy
                                  would look like. We know our roots
                                  have been grown in blood; it is an
                                  integral part of its essence and once
                                  we know that, it cannot be removed.</p>
                              </div>
                            </div>
                            <div
                              id="block-yui_3_17_2_2_1468694262846_31724"
                              data-block-type="2" class="sqs-block
                              html-block sqs-block-html">
                              <div class="sqs-block-content">
                                <p><strong>Jonathan: </strong>The
                                  danger lies in allowing yourself or
                                  your work to be sanitized. Radical
                                  critique is woven into the fabric of
                                  what this project does, and if that is
                                  taken away you no longer have BLXPLTN.
                                  That's not to say that we don't want
                                  to create work that is light and fun,
                                  but even then I believe a rock band
                                  comprised of people of color is a
                                  political statement in and of itself.
                                  Every day that we live through without
                                  being arrested or killed is an act of
                                  revolution. We're not making any deals
                                  with the devil. In the end standing as
                                  Black and proud will always make you
                                  more than a few enemies, but having
                                  enemies is nothing new to our people.</p>
                                <p><strong>Robin: </strong>Not sure I
                                  understand the question, nor do I
                                  think there is such a thing as a
                                  singular Radical Black Imagination.
                                  Nor do I believe the culture industry
                                  sees itself as “color blind.” Often
                                  the most reactionary elements of the
                                  “culture industry” plays into racist
                                  representations with all deliberate
                                  speed and no apology, if they believe
                                  there is money to be made. I’m less
                                  worried about how radical artists try
                                  to negotiate the culture industry or
                                  how that industry manages political
                                  content than with our continued
                                  investment in the industry itself and
                                  the kind of abject individualism that
                                  so many of us subscribe to in the name
                                  of being “radical.” First, there are
                                  valuable lessons from the Black Arts
                                  Movement and other movements of the
                                  need to withdraw from the industry, to
                                  create actual (and virtual) spaces
                                  outside of control or commodification.
                                  This is happening and worth talking
                                  about, but most of the folks I know
                                  would rather talk about Kendrick
                                  Lamar. That’s fine but limited
                                  politically.</p>
                                <p>Second, I keep coming back to
                                  collective movement, collective art,
                                  movement identities. We’ve come to
                                  believe that social media is, ipso
                                  facto, an expression of the “social”
                                  or the collective. Yes, it is a
                                  remarkable tool for making global
                                  connections, organizing, and seeking
                                  out alternatives to corporate media.
                                  However, there is a counterproductive
                                  tendency in social media and the
                                  “blogosphere” to not think and
                                  struggle collectively, but rather make
                                  pronouncements from one’s perch, and
                                  when there is push back or critique,
                                  to call the critic a “hater.” This is
                                  a new American phenomenon I can’t get
                                  my head around. And the implications
                                  for art are enormous. It basically
                                  means that artists need not be
                                  accountable, and they protect
                                  themselves from critique by having a
                                  following on Twitter or Facebook that
                                  function like a kind of gang. For
                                  example, when I published my essay
                                  “Empire State of Mind” that delved
                                  into Jay-Z’s entanglements with
                                  sweatshop labor in producing his
                                  clothing line, or his unwitting
                                  backing of privatizing water in Africa
                                  under the guise of philanthropy, or
                                  Alicia Keys’ refusal to join the
                                  cultural boycott of Israel on the
                                  specious argument that her music will
                                  bring Israelis and Palestinians
                                  together in a big lovefest, I received
                                  much push back for “dissing” artists
                                  who are doing such good. Really? I
                                  guess I’m old school and can’t
                                  separate the material realities of
                                  exploitation from art.</p>
                                <p><strong>On the other hand, do you
                                    think there’s possibility for these
                                    types of radical, Black and proud
                                    narratives to reach across and shift
                                    non-Black folks’ (Arabs, Latinxs,
                                    radical white folks, etc.) ways of
                                    thinking? What’s the difference
                                    between this and what we would call
                                    co-optation?</strong></p>
                                <p><strong>Walidah: </strong>With <em>Octavia’s
                                    Brood</em> we came up with the term
                                  visionary fiction, which is
                                  fantastical writing (whether it be sci
                                  fi, fantasy, speculative fiction,
                                  horror, etc.) that helps understand
                                  existing power structures and helps us
                                  imagine new just futures. We also came
                                  up with principles of visionary
                                  fiction – that change is collective,
                                  decentralized, that it focuses on
                                  people. That it centers those who have
                                  been marginalized, especially those
                                  who sit at the intersections of
                                  identity and oppressions (like queer
                                  and trans folks of color, like
                                  differently abled undocumented
                                  immigrant folk). If we are operating
                                  with shared principles, and have a
                                  mutual dream of freedom, then we will
                                  always have a center to return to.</p>
                                <p>I think dreams of freedom resonate
                                  with all those who want justice. This
                                  is where multiplicity comes in, and
                                  why I believe science fiction becomes
                                  incredibly helpful, because it allows
                                  us to see that instead of one “right”
                                  future, there are infinite futures, in
                                  a universe that is infinitely
                                  expanding. Instead of the one “right”
                                  way to liberation, there are as many
                                  paths are there human beings past,
                                  present, and future.</p>
                                <p><strong>Jonathan: </strong>The
                                  shifts are already taking place. If
                                  you look at the BLM movement, the
                                  non-white allies totally get that they
                                  have skin in the game. In the fight
                                  for liberation we must prop up the
                                  most oppressed. We must work towards
                                  that end. There is something very
                                  encouraging about a lot of today's
                                  kids. They seem to understand a bit
                                  better than our generation that until
                                  Black trans folks are liberated we are
                                  <em>all</em> oppressed.</p>
                                <p><strong>Robin: </strong>Embracing,
                                  acting on, and furthering radical
                                  thought is never cooptation. No one
                                  should have a copyright on a radical
                                  critique of the world and visions of
                                  how to enact that critique. What we
                                  think of as the Black Radical
                                  Imagination or the tradition has not
                                  only informed other struggles
                                  –Palestinians, Egyptians, indigenous
                                  movements, movements across Latin
                                  America and Asia, as well as “radical
                                  white folks,” but one must also
                                  acknowledge that those movements
                                  elsewhere have informed what we think
                                  of as Black radical movements and
                                  thought. I can’t go into it now, but
                                  it is hard to imagine T. Thomas
                                  Fortune, Lucy Parsons, W.E.B. Du Bois,
                                  C.L.R. James, Walter Rodney, Angela
                                  Davis, Barbara Smith, etc., without
                                  Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, Trotsky,
                                  or Che Guevara, or Rimbaud, or M. N.
                                  Roy and Sen Katayama. Consider George
                                  Jackson’s identification with
                                  Palestinian poet Sameeh Al-Qaseem’s
                                  “Enemy of the Sun,” one of several
                                  poems he wrote out from a book he read
                                  in prison? A book, incidentally,
                                  published by the Black run radical
                                  Drum and Spear Press out of D.C.?
                                   None of this is cooptation. This is
                                  called solidarity.</p>
                              </div>
                            </div>
                            <div
                              id="block-yui_3_17_2_2_1468694262846_36941"
                              data-block-type="2" class="sqs-block
                              html-block sqs-block-html">
                              <div class="sqs-block-content">
                                <p>Solidarity is becoming increasingly
                                  distant in a political atmosphere that
                                  can only see white people at “allies”
                                  and not comrades, or only see
                                  anti-Black racism as the only thing
                                  worth fighting for, or questions
                                  whether or not Black people should
                                  support struggles of people who have
                                  not succeeded in quashing all vestiges
                                  of anti-Black racism. It is a high
                                  standard, especially since our own
                                  communities<em> – </em>I’m talking
                                  about Black people<em> – </em>have
                                  continued to reveal lingering signs of
                                  anti-Black racism. Comradeship is not
                                  built on some metaphysics of race or
                                  some shared experience of oppression.
                                  Comrades are made in struggle, and
                                  they are never numerous and they don’t
                                  necessarily look like us. Comrades
                                  recognize that white people are a
                                  fabrication<em> – </em>and for that
                                  matter, so are we as Black people, and
                                  indigenous people, as Latinos and
                                  Asians. Yes, we’re real with real
                                  desires and cultures and (contested)
                                  beliefs and histories, but we are
                                  forced to always remake ourselves in
                                  relation to Others, to whiteness, to
                                  racism/sexism/homophobia.  People of
                                  Color is not an identity but a
                                  relationship defined by racism,
                                  dispossession and imperialism. I’m not
                                  saying we’re just “people” or making
                                  some claim to universalism, but rather
                                  we need to recognize that as long as
                                  “difference” is structured in
                                  dominance, we are not free and we are
                                  not “made.” Making revolution requires
                                  making new identities, and that means
                                  new relationships and learning from
                                  each other. That is not cooptation.</p>
                                <p><em>This interview appears in Red
                                    Wedge No. 2, "Art Against Global
                                    Apartheid," available for purchase
                                    at the <a
                                      href="http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/shop/">Red
                                      Wedge shop</a>.</em></p>
                              </div>
                            </div>
                            <div
                              id="block-yui_3_17_2_3_1468427988069_26111"
                              data-block-type="2" class="sqs-block
                              html-block sqs-block-html">
                              <div class="sqs-block-content">
                                <p><em><strong>Walidah Imarisha</strong>
                                    is an author, poet activist and
                                    educator who has taught at Portland
                                    and Oregon State Universities. Her
                                    writing has appeared in several
                                    books and anthologies. Most recently
                                    she has co-edited Octavia’s Brood:
                                    Science Fiction Stories From Social
                                    Justice Movements (AK Press/IAS) and
                                    is the author of Angels With Dirty
                                    Faces: Three Stories of Crime,
                                    Prison and Redemption (AK
                                    Press/IAS).</em></p>
                                <p><em><strong>Jonathan Horstmann</strong> </em><em>is
                                    a recording artist, social justice
                                    activist, videographer, actor, and
                                    illustrator based in Austin, Texas.
                                    He is one half of the futurepunk
                                    group BLXPLTN. The group’s first
                                    album Black Cop Down was released in
                                    the fall of 2014 and received wide
                                    critical acclaim. Their new album,
                                    New York Fascist Week, will be
                                    released in 2016.</em></p>
                                <p><em><strong>Robin D.G. Kelley</strong>
                                    is the author and editor of more
                                    than ten books on the subject of
                                    radical history, art, music and the
                                    Black struggle around the globe.
                                    These include Hammer and Hoe:
                                    Alabama Communists During the Great
                                    Depression (University of North
                                    Carolina Press), Thelonious Monk:
                                    The Life and Times of An American
                                    Original (The Free Press), and
                                    Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical
                                    Imagination (Beacon Press). He is
                                    the Gary B. Nash Professor of
                                    American History at UCLA.</em></p>
                              </div>
                            </div>
                          </div>
                        </div>
                      </div>
                    </div>
                  </article>
                </div>
              </section>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
      <div> </div>
    </div>
    <div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
      Freedom Archives
      522 Valencia Street
      San Francisco, CA 94110
      415 863.9977
      <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>