Kyle Mays, who teaches at the African American Studies Department and the Native American Center at UCLA, says Hip Hop “builds solidarity between the two communities,” which share a complex history of slavery, displacement and state violence. Mays is author of the book, Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in North America.Water rights and climate change are connected with larger political empowerment issues. “We need to somehow deal with the issue of returning land to native peoples,” said Mays, who is of Black and Native American ancestry.
Long before the Nike deal it was clear that Kaepernick’s politics were being subsumed by other forces pushing a weak soup of “diversity” and “free speech.”
Things could get very ugly in Chicago if the cop that killed Laquan McDonald is set free by a jury that includes only one Black person.
Rather than benevolent protector, the state enables and often perpetuates violence against marginalized communities, criminalizing them.
The racism of the larger society is internalized in us, including those of us who are Black and brown, and must be methodically confronted.
Incarcerated people are limited to pushing prison reform, while the unincarcerated have the privilege to advocate abolition.
