Letters from Our Readers

Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor

08 Apr 2020

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This week you discussed Black Marxism and the Bernie Sanders campaign. We share your letters for “Can Black Marxists Imagine the Unimaginable?” and “Bernie Sanders’ Socialism Isn’t the Real Thing.”

In the radio segment “Can Black Marxists Imagine the Unimaginable?” Minkah Makalani discusses the concept of the unimaginable in black radical thought.

Wise Bassline writes:

“If one sees the Black Marxists tradition as having a lineage that goes through folks like Dubois, C.L.R. James, Nkrumah, Cabral, Rodney, Hani et al, what on Earth is this guy talking about? His speculative Fanonism is illustrative of how out of touch the Black Radical Tradition has become and how Black America's struggle no longer holds much primacy in the planet's struggle against capitalism. The belly of the beast is a ball of confusion!”

In the radio segment “Bernie Sanders’ Socialism Isn’t the Real Thing” Joshua Briond argues that Sanders “is a standard US ‘progressive’ who is very much interested in maintaining US imperialism.”

Kim Lionessa writes:

“A lot of people don't realize that Bernie is not as left as right wing democrats make him out to be. There is a perception that he is far left, but he's really just barely left of center.”

Markus O’Bryan O’Heffernan writes:

“None of the imperialism and colonialism stops while using the definitions and systems imposed by the imperialists and colonists. And all their stuff is backed up by their imposed legal systems, and their order follower cops and military.

“The thing is that the imperialist authoritarian control over the determination of what shall be the thing that the populace must use for money is NOT in question on a historical basis. Many scholars can document this for you. The question is whether or not that exercise of this control has EVER been used to benefit the populace when one considers the long connection to war mongering that Graeber and others document and the absolute destruction of self sufficiency and sovereignty that is the historic intent of the colonial money systems that follow the same model.”

Politics will not be the same after this pandemic subsides. The people will be looking for new ideas and the ideological work we do now will become crucial.

Jahan Choudhry is Comments Editor for Black Agenda Report. He is an organizer with the Saturday Free School based in Philadelphia, PA.

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