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.
“Ocasio-Cortez deserves credit for beating a corrupt but powerful system.”
“No oppressed people or group in the US knows what it is like to be separated from their families, locked in cages, and murdered by the state more than Black Americans.”
“The argument that anyone to the left of Donald Trump owes their vote to a Democrat has always been stupid and arrogant.”
“American gynecology and obstetrics is intimately bound to American slavery.”
“We are seeing the reemergence of a white supremacist engagement with science that has always existed, but is finding more traction within the public sphere and media.”
