If you don't see the video above, click here.
Mae Jackson is a New York City based writer, poet, dreamer and doer whose record of activism on behalf of her people stretches back to SNCC. A founder of Art Without Walls, an art program for the children of imprisoned women, she is well acquainted with the difference between surface change, and fundamental, revolutionary change.
Here are a few minutes of her address to the crowd at May 31, 2009 event memorializing the early 20th century Harlem activist Hubert Harrison, in which she lays out a clear understanding of whose lips move when our First Black President speaks. Referring to some of Barack Obama's widely acclaimed orations at the Democratic convention, atop Lincoln's tomb, and other places, she tells us
“..those wonderful speeches made by the young man from Chicago were actually crafted, that's written, by three young white men 25, 26 and 31 years old. We got the unfortunate opportunity once again to see the world through their eyes. Obama was the spokesperson. Same as when you buy a painting, that doesn't make you the painter...”
She explains how the establishment turned took the politics out of activism, neutralizing and de-politicizing young political activists by turning them into “community organizers."
Mass shootings have become ubiquitous in the US, as part of a gun-obsessed culture that manufactures and exports violence around the world. This pandemic of violence is a creation that serves ruling…
Joe Biden's several decades in political office have proved him consistent in his depraved indifference toward the suffering of oppressed people around the globe as he offers full-throated support…
ROAPE interviews South African Human Rights activist and academic Salim Vally on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the relationship between Palestinian liberation and Africa.
Despite the veneer of progress, what does a historical critique of East Africa’s capitalist beacon reveal?
Although the final document calls for “transitioning” from fossil fuels, many developing states and territories wanted stronger language and economic commitments.
