This book shows that the liberal road to reform was a dead end; it is time to commit to revolution.
“A radical analysis is necessary to engage with emerging social movements like Black Lives Matter.”
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Kehinde Andrews.Andrews is Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University. His book is Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century.
Roberto Sirvent:How can your book help BAR readers understand the current political and social climate?
Kehinde Andrews: Over fifty years on from race relations legislation that outlawed discrimination in the West, and the political independence of most of Africa and the Caribbean racism is as embedded into the fabric of global society as ever before. Mass incarceration; police brutality; African bodies floating in the Mediterranean; and millions of child deaths in Africa each year due solely to global inequality, are a testament to this. We have made only the illusion of progress over the last five decades, with the shape but not the nature of the system changing. In 1964, Malcolm X declared that we needed an ‘it’s already too late’ philosophy for Black liberation, and if it was too late back then, we are long past due the time where we can continue to seek reforming a system that is built on our oppression.
Back to Black provides a radical analysis of the society, outlining an alternative framework for understanding our place in the political economy. The book also lays out a blueprint for Black radicalism, outlining the political ideology and practice of liberation that has existed, in different forms, for centuries. A radical analysis is necessary to engage with emerging social movements like Black Lives Matter. If we are serious about ending racism then the last thing we need is a new civil rights movement. The liberal road to reform was a dead end; it is time to commit to revolution.
What do you hope activists and community organizers will take away from reading your book?
When presenting Black radicalism, either as theory or practice there are two common dismissals. When people hear that the system cannot be reformed they often level the accusation that the analysis is too pessimistic. But Black radicalism is actually one of the most optimistic set of ideas, acknowledging that the system is unfixable and proposing that we build a new political and economic reality. To lose hope in a system that was built on our oppression does not mean losing faith in Black liberation.
“Black radicalism is not about grand gestures but the collection of incremental moves that lead in the direction of revolutionary change.”
Another common objection is that revolution is unattainable and that we should focus on the immediate. In Back to Black I call this an obsession with symptoms of racism, rather than the disease itself. Of course we should treat the symptoms, for instance we cannot allow the police to murder us with impunity. But if we only do this they will keep on recurring. We must have a much more long term vision for our politics. Fifty years ago the world was on the brink of Pan-African and Marxist revolt. In another fifty years the world could be a radically different place. Black radicalism is not about grand gestures but the collection of incremental moves that lead in the direction of revolutionary change. But we cannot just accept any change as good; small or symbolic changes that further tie us into this system must always be rejected. Yes, I am telling you to stop pining for Obama, whose presidency was a classic case of Black man, White house. Change in the wrong direction does not make a difference.
If activists take anything away from this book it is that revolutionary change is possible, and our only hope for freedom.
We know readers will learn a lot from your book, but what do you hope readers will un-learn? In other words, is there a particular ideology you’re hoping to dismantle?
It is impossible to understand Black radicalism without untangling the politics from a range of related but different ideas. Back to Black starts with a critique of Black Nationalism, which is often so narrow and reductive that it is useless for liberation. The liberal radicalism of much academic scholarship is also interrogated, those approaches that embrace radical analysis but ignore revolutionary solutions in favor of the comfort of the ivory tower. But the ideology that is most unrepentantly critiqued is cultural nationalism, the idea that there is salvation to be found culturally embracing so-called ‘African-ness.’
Afrocentrism is often conflated with Black radicalism, but nothing could be further from the truth. Afrocentrism is based on a cultural essentialism, which not coincidently centers the male and heterosexual creating a quest for authenticity that is exclusionary. It is very easy to reject the ‘politics’ of Afrocentrism but we should never consider these ideas radical. Black radicalism is based on the political connection of Blackness, which unites all those of Africa descent regardless of gender or sexuality.
“Afrocentrism centers the male and heterosexual creating a quest for authenticity that is exclusionary.”
It is also essential that we stop denying women their rightful place in history. There has undoubtedly been misogyny in the Black freedom struggle but nothing would have functioned without women. The Haitian Revolution, the Garvey movement, the Black Panthers and every movement before and since has had Black women at its core. History remembers the men and we must do a much better job of giving credit to the women. Here are just a few Black women who I have grown up inspired by: Queen Nzinga, Queen Nanny, Cecile Fatiman, Yaa Asantewaa, Mbuya Nehanda, Harriet Tubman, Amy Jacques Garvey, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Assata Shakur, Olive Morris, Claudia Jones.
Who are the intellectual heroes that inspire your work?
Malcolm X underlines all of the work in Back to Black. More than anyone else Malcolm articulated the politics and spirit of Black radicalism. Unlike in the popular view of Malcolm there was no epiphany and huge break in his political philosophy once he visited Mecca. The evolution in Malcolm’s position is clearly taking place during his entire time in the Nation of Islam. Malcolm’s catalogue of speeches are a constant source of knowledge and inspiration.
Revolutionaries throughout history were also vital sources of inspiration for the book. I grew up hearing stories about figures like Queen Nanny of the Maroons in Jamaica, who fought against the British in the 18thCentury. Nanny’s story illustrates the global dimensions of Blackness. She was an Asante leader who was stolen into slavery and escaped a Jamaican plantation, eventually leading one of the most revolutionary maroon communities. Unlike her brother Cudjoe, Nanny refused to sign a treaty with the British that would leave her Maroons returning runaways and preventing offenses against plantations. It is that revolutionary spirit that informed the politics of Back to Black.
“Queen Nanny fought against the British in the 18thCentury.”
Patricia Hill Collins’ work critiquing Black Nationalism and also the foundational exploration of Black feminist thought was also vital. Undoing the masculine narrative of the Black freedom movement was a first essential step in the work. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality was also key to providing a framework to understand the intersection of gender and Blackness. One of the most important parts of the book is outlining a radical conception of Blackness that is anti-misogynoir.
In what way does your book help us imagine new worlds?
Black radicalism is a political ideology that demands we recreate the world anew. Central to the work in the book is that the current political and economic system can never provide ‘freedom, justice, and equality’ for Black people in the ‘same way that a chicken can never lay a duck egg’, to (again) quote Malcolm X. Unlike other works that may be quick to provide the radical critique Back to Black also outlines what Black radicalism looks like in practice. It is no good presenting a critique if you do not offer a solution.
‘Black is a country’ is one of my favorite chapters in the book because it details revolutionary nationalism. Building a Black organization across nation-states’ boundaries that can unite the Africa and her Diaspora is the process of Black radicalism. Garvey’s Universal Improvement Association had the model, whilst Malcolm provided the politics with theOrganization of Afro-American Unity(OAAU). It is only by building this kind of organization that we can truly challenge the racial global order. Using the OAAU as a basis, we created theOrganisation of Black Unity, which we later merged with an existing community group called Harambee. For me this is not just an academic exercise but an attempt to think how to develop the theory we can apply in practice.
The other important contribution Back to Black makes is to make clear that the process of revolution is one that is forward looking. We do not have the answers and we can definitely not find them by pressing the factory re-set button and returning to pre-colonial Africa. It is only through the process of revolution that we can produce revolutionary politics and culture.
Roberto Sirvent is Professor of Political and Social Ethics at Hope International University in Fullerton, CA. He also serves as the Outreach and Mentoring Coordinator for the Political Theology Network. He’s currently writing a book with fellow BAR contributor Danny Haiphong called American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News—From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.
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