Millennials Are Killing Capitalism

This is the second half of our conversation with Joshua Myers on his latest book Of Black Study. In part one we covered Myers’ goals for the project and the selection of thinkers he includes. We also reviewed in some detail his chapters on W.E.B. Du Bois and Sylvia Wynter, as well as his inclusion of June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara.

In this part of the discussion we focus on the interventions of Jacob Carruthers and Cedric Robinson, who Myers often places in dialogue with one another. We talk about Carruthers work toward an African historiography, and around language and African Deep Thought, going into the terms mdw ntr and whm msw and talking a bit about their meaning and importance and conceptual relevance to the Black Radical Tradition and revolutionary possibility.

Because we have two other discussions with Myers on Cedric Robinson, both of which go more in-depth on Black Marxism and Robinson’s interventions there, we focused this time on Myers work around Terms of Order and An Anthropology of Marxism. Myers closes with a reflection on the inability of the western university to accommodate radical thought in general, and Black radical thought in particular, except as a means to discipline and control it, leaving open questions of where Black Study must go from here.

We again want to thank Pluto Press for donating copies for our reading group of incarcerated folks which we support along with Massive Bookshop and Prisons Kill. This book comes out Friday on Pluto Press, so make sure to pre-order your copy or pick it up from your favorite radical bookstore.

Shout-out to all the folks who are patrons of our show and support the work we do bringing you conversations like this. You can join them and become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

The discussion with Harold Cruse referenced in the episode.

Our first interview with Joshua Myers (on Cedric Robinson)

Our second interview with Joshua Myers (on his biography of Cedric Robinson)

Our interviews with authors and editors of the Black Critique series

In this episode Josh interviews Amba Guerguerian and Harry to discuss the New York War Crimes project and their efforts to get people to Boycott, Divest, and Unsubscribe from the New York Times.

Amba Guerguerian is an associate editor at The Indypendent and a contributor at The New York War Crimes.

Harry is a writer, educator and organizer with Writers against the War on Gaza and a contributor at The New York War Crimes.

The New York War Crimes is a project dedicated to de legitimizing the imperial mouthpiece that is The New York Times through focused contemporary and historical critique, while providing an alternative platform for Palestinian and Arab authors, poets and artists — precisely what you won’t find in the pages of The Times.

If you would like to support our work the best way to do so as always is to become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. We are also still working to increase our subscriber base over on the YouTube channel so subscribing to that feed is another great way. We have four, possible five live episodes coming this upcoming week so make sure you are subscribed there or on patreon to catch all of that content.

This episode was recorded on March 31, 2024

This episode was co-edited/produced by Aidan Elias and Jared Ware

Music is provided as always by Televangel

Links:

The New York War Crimes

The Indypendent

Writers Against the War on Gaza

U.S. Media Control and October 7th with Bryce Greene

Electronic Intifada

Mondoweiss

The Anti-Empire Project with Justin Podour

MAKC YouTube Channel

In this episode Damien Sojoyner returns to the podcast to talk about his book First Strike: Educational Enclosures in Black Los Angeles.

This episode was recorded in November and unfortunately its release was delayed due to the circumstances of the world today, which have necessitated for us a lot of media work in solidarity with Palestinian resistance, and against the genocide being enacted on Palestinians most visibly and egregiously in Gaza.

I also had the chance to catch up with Damien Sojoyner at the Archives Unbound conference at UC Santa Barbara a few weeks ago, and you can find a brief interview I conducted with them here.

This book First Strike (Currently 50% of with the code: MN91620 through June 30th) is one that I had been wanting to discuss with Damien since I learned of it, because it very much relates to various intersecting interests of mine, the Black Radical Tradition, abolition, the prison industrial complex, and public education. Disrupting common framing of a school-to-prison pipeline Sojoyner really examines how we might understand public schools, and different regimes of education as enclosures upon more radical possibilities. And we get into a discussion of the warehousing function of schools, the psychological warfare aspects and more. As there is a lot of connection between this discussion and the discussion we had with Damien last year on his book Against the Carceral Archive, we have linked that in the show notes as well.

We will have more audio content coming for you later this week as well as more video content on our YouTube channel.

We've created playlist from the Cedric and Elizabeth Robinson Archives Unbound conference.

If you appreciate the work we do at Millennials Are Killing Capitalism the best way you can support our work is as always to become a patron of the show. We are still working to find better solutions to getting all of the audio content we have backlogged released to you as quickly as possible. This has meant paying for some additional help in many cases. All that is to say, we really appreciate all of you who have been contributing to our work some of you for many years now. If people are not patrons of the show yet and are able to give $1 a month or more that’s deeply appreciated as well. You can become a patron at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

We recorded this conversation just before the world shifted on October 7th. We actually have several conversations that we still need to release that we recorded in August and September, but I wanted to get to this one first due to the urgency of Shaka Shakur’s situation.

Shaka Shakur is a New Afrikan Political Prisoner who has been behind the walls for the majority of his life since he was 16 years old. He’s currently held captive at Beaumont Correctional Center in Virginia. He was mentored by figures such as Zolo Azania and James “Yaki” Sayles. Shaka has an extensive track record of prisoner organizing and exposing injustices and human rights violations behind the walls. I’ll include a more extensive bio from his Jericho Movement page in the show notes.

Shaka had reached out to me after the publication of our discussion with Thandisizwe Chimurenga and Yusef “Bunchy” Shakur on Sanyika Shakur’s political writings. He wanted to share some things and also offer the perspective of someone from Sanyika's generation who spent many years studying and struggling in the same circles, and communicating with Sanyika through the Prison News Service and other publications that circulated behind the walls connecting New Afrikan prisoners and other political and politicized prisoners. Shaka also describes similar experiences of becoming politicized during their first period of incarceration at a young age, struggling upon his return to the outside & ultimately ending up back behind the walls.

Shakur shares his reflections on that era, on changes in the prison movement and outside support movements over time and on the disconnect that often exists between revolutionary rhetoric and revolutionary action in the US left in recent years.

Importantly, Shaka Shakur is currently dealing with multiple urgent health issues, including his battle with cancer and we have multiple links and ways people can support his legal campaign and his request for clemency. We will have links to all of this in the show notes, but just to say that he is still asking people to call in and put pressure the Department of Correction for further medical testing. That call is in the show notes as well.

This episode was also recorded before the passing of Ed Mead who we mention in this discussion. Rest well Ed, you've earned it.

The last thing I will say is that although this was recorded before the Palestinian struggle took center stage, I think many of Shaka’s reflections are relevant to that movement as well as the US based solidarity efforts that are currently underway so keep that in mind as you listen.

Shaka Shakur Medical Needs/Update

Shaka Shakur's Clemency Petition

Shaka Shakur's Jericho Movement page

Shaka Shakur's Legal Defense Fund

Documentary: Shaka Shakur Human Rights Held Hostage

Shaka Shakur's Defense Link Tree

Aidan Elias co-edited & co-produced this episode

In this episode Abdaljawad (Abboud) Omar returns to the show.

This is the lightly edited audio from a livestream we recorded on March 24th

Abdaljawad Omar is a writer, analyst, and lecturer based in Ramallah, Palestine. He currently lectures in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University. He has written extensively in Arabic. In English Abboud has contributed to Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, and Ebb Magazine among other outlets.

We discuss his essay "Bleeding Forms: Beyond the Intifada," which is available open access through Duke University press.

We will also talk about recent developments in the US-co-authored zionist genocidal war on Palestinians. Although we would note that because this was recorded a little over a week ago, a few of my comments are not totally current to the most recent developments, but the analysis remains quite relevant nonetheless.

We discuss some of the recent developments from the Palestinian resistance which continues to maintain a heroic resistance against the zionist occupation’s forces. And of course we touch on the siege on Al Shifa hospital, the full extent of which we revealed yesterday when the IOF retreated from the area.

This was our seventh conversation with Abdaljawad Omar since November. Previously we have released a couple of them as audio podcasts, but there are still 4 others that have not been converted yet and all of them are up on a playlist on our Youtube channel that we’ll link in the show notes:

Also want to note that since October 7th we’ve also had a few conversations with Dr. Lara Sheehi discussing recent developments from a decolonial psychoanalytic perspective. And we also have created a playlist for those.

In addition some of our recent guests on the Youtube feed include Steven Salaita, Within Our Lifetime, Decolonize Palestine, Celeste Winston, Matteo Capasso, Hanif Abdurraqib, Dylan Rodríguez, and more.

We also have three more livestreams prepared for this coming week so remember to subscribe to the Youtube channel, turn on notifications and catch those.

We do also have another study group starting up. This time on Orisanmi Burton’s Tip of the Spear. This will start on April 17th at 7:30 PM ET. This study group is available for all patrons of the show. To gain access to that or just to support our work, become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

Livestream conversations with Abdaljawad Omar

Livestream conversations with Lara Sheei (including one with Stephen Sheehi as well)