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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."
As the White House and 10 Downing Street deny genocide in Gaza, both imperialist states bomb Yemen, the most impoverished country in the West Asia region.
The International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine renews its call for support of South Africa's charge of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice.
One hundred years since Lenin’s death, Nigerian socialist Abiodun Olamosu describes the revolutionary's influence on his own political development.
For the third time a federal court has dismissed a case targeting the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights' support for the 2018-19 Great March of Return protests in Gaza.
South Africa makes the case against Israel at the ICJ, events in Gaza, the passing of Sekou Odinga.
