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."
This week’s featured author is Rima Vesely-Flad.![How Joe Biden and The Democratic Party’s Climate Agenda Increases Environmental Racism More Than It Reduces Emissions [A Three Part Series]](/sites/default/files/styles/nc_thumb/public/2023-09/cancer%20alley%20protest.jpg.jpeg?itok=kOK48inx)
The environmental benefits of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act are non-existent for Black and other marginalized communities.
There are Arab governments going along with the U.S. push to normalize relations with Israel. But people throughout the region are adamantly opposed to such treachery, as the now suspended Foreign…
Nothing is sacred under capitalism. Even hip hop, the genre which spoke to Black politics and culture is now just another commodity.
Any celebration of the 50th anniversary of hip hop must reference its worldwide political appeal.
