Roga Rojo Reads

Book blog full of radical reads and overall interesting texts!

[roga-el-rojo]

As We Have Always Done - Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Hello friends,

For my second recommendation this Native American Heritage Month I want to highlight a text which explores the various ways Indigenous peoples have actively resisted settler colonialism past and present, as well as all other conjunctures of oppression through radically resurgent practice: “As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance” by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Dr. Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg (member of Alderville First Nation) scholar, writer, activist, and artist. She is a faculty member at the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Arts at Ryerson University. She is author of several books, including Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back, The Gift Is in the Making, and Islands of Decolonial Love, and produces music such as her latest Theory of Ice record.

“As We Have Always Done” argues for a radical form of resistance to settler-colonial dispossession of Indigenous bodies and land, as well as capitalism, cisheteropatriarchy, and white supremacy broadly, though a project of “Radical Resurgence” that’s rooted in Indigenous thinking and organizing, alongside a refusal of settler colonial practices and structures in building this future.

Firstly, I want to uplift the centering of Nishnaabeg history and thought across this text and Simpson’s connection of central concepts to liberatory struggles. For example, her exploration of place-based resurgent education using aki, a term which represents land, water, the spiritual realm, and freedom, instead of settler concepts is wonderful. 

She’s also foregrounding the struggle against cisheteropatriarchy, both internal and external to Indigenous movements, by using kwe (roughly an Indigenous conception of womanhood) as a method to refuse instances of gendered settler colonial violence against women, children, Two-Spirit folks, and Indigenous queer people broadly and also affirming their pivotal contributions.

I highly recommend everyone read this text as an example of Indigenous theorizing on how to struggle effectively on Turtle Island!

[roga-el-rojo]

Never Whistle at Night - edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

Hello friends!

As a nice way to bridge from Halloween into Native American History and Puerto Rican Heritage month, my first recommendation is going to be an of indigenous dark fiction which tackles themes such as colonialism, gender, and generational memory with supernatural flair: “Never Whistle at Night” edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

Shane Hawk, a Cheyenne and Arapaho history teacher and horror writer, has contributed to various literary works, including his debut story collection Anoka (the art for this post), this anthology, and co-written an Indigenous Horror stage play titled The Land Has Spoken which debuted this October.

Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr. (enrolled member, Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians) is a professor and chair of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University and has published books like Sacred Smokes and Sacred City. He is also the creative editor for Transmotion, a journal of postmodern Indigenous studies. Hawk's fiction and photography have been published in various publications and journals.

“Never Whistle At Night” is a collection of 26 short stories compiled by a very diverse set of indigenous authors tackling a litany of topics using the advantage of horror genre conventions. I’m sure everyone who checks this out will have their own favorite list, but I wanted to highlight a couple of mine with a short blurb:

Kushtuka by Mathilda Zeller - Forced to work for a man who already wants to take advantage of her, this woman’s rage simmers just below the surface before it finally boils over.

Behind Colin’s Eyes by Shane Hawk - Before a hunting trip, this boy can’t sleep in anticipation. Unsure if his eyes are playing tricks on him, he tries to brush aside his fears in the night. But once in the woods, he sees things he can’t explain.

Night in the Chrysalis by Tiffany Morris - Spending the night in a new-to-her home that her aunt had purchased, this woman has trouble settling as she’s haunted by nightmares and spirits. All she can do is wait for the sunrise.

I don’t want to spoil any of the stories, so I highly recommend y’all check out these indigenous horror reads to learn more!

[roga-el-rojo]

October - China Miéville

Hello friends,

For my next post, I’d like to celebrate a world-historic event which took place on October 24-25 (Julian calendar-wise) in 1917 with a fascinating historical breakdown that narrates this revolutionary period in its complexity and weirdness with great literary flair: “October: The Story of the Russian Revolution” by China Miéville

China Miéville is a New York Times-bestselling author of fiction and non-fiction. In 2015 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2018 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction, and received numerous prizes for his books. He has worked at several prestigious universities, is one of founding editors of the journal Salvage, and has been involved in socialist politics for decades.

In 1917, Russia transformed from an autocratic monarchy to the first socialist state in world history. “October” explores the extraordinary months between the upheavals, including the intrigues, negotiations, conflicts, and catastrophes of the revolution. It features the works of Lenin, Trotsky, Kornilov, and Kerensky, as well as the byzantine squabbles of urban activists and their revolutionary tools like railroad Sublime to allow the revolution to succeed.

One can’t help appreciate Miéville’s gift when it comes to storytelling, which is expected from a master of New Weird Fiction. Applying this to history, however, is worth praising, particularly Russian Revolutionary history which is often dry and uninformed. He describes larger than life figures like Lenin in their context as the messy humans they are, while also pushing us to appreciate the role the masses make in history.

At the same time, I can’t help but disagree with Miéville’s political interpretations of several events, which is to be expected given his Trotskyist history. I can’t help but see the looming figure of “Stalinism” plague some of his reflections on the revolution’s real tensions and failures, which dampens its accuracy in my opinion.

However you feel about this reflection, I highly recommend everyone (especially folks on the Left) read this to understand the legend of Red October and hopefully inspire revolutionary instincts in us for the future

[roga-el-rojo]

Counter-Intelligence - National Lawyers Guild

Hello friends,

For my last post this Latine Heritage Month I want to wrap up by highlighting a study of repression faced by Chicano political groups during their peak, as well as other radical socialist national liberation movements, with the aim of learning from these experiences and building solidarity from them: “The FBI’s Counterintelligence Operations Against: Black, Puerto Rican, Native American, and Chicano/Mexicano movements” by the National Lawyers Guild

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States. The group was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association (ABA) in protest of that organization's then exclusionary membership practices and conservative political orientation. They were the first predominantly white US bar association to become racially integrated, and have continually been at the forefront of using the law for progressive ends.

Today’s text is a collection of FBI documents and newspaper stories on the various ways US counter-intelligence has worked to undermine perceived threats by any means necessary. It was collected, edited, and published by the NLG on January 26, 1980, and specifically highlights the way domestic Third World liberation movements constituted threats to the integrity of the U.S. project, especially during the Cold War.

While there are too many cases to analyze, common threads in their methods exist. The FBI’s propensity to manipulate leaders and newbies alike, as well as play-off internal disputes to fracture organizations, loom large. Their willingness to turn a blind eye to police brutality or set up their own violent operations were part of a broader political project of political pacification, and their ability to cover their tracks was immense.

Chicano organizations were targeted in these ways and more, and there’s no indication their willingness to do so again will change. I highly recommend everyone, especially folks interested in national liberation struggles, learn from these texts to build more resilient movements today!

[roga-el-rojo]

¡Chicana Power! - Maylei Blackwell

Hello friends,

Our next recommendation this Latine Heritage Month delves into political history, specifically Chicana politics in the 60’s and 70’s as Chicanas created feminist organizations to fight for their freedom from white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalist domination: “¡Chicana Power! Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement” by Maylei Blackwell.

Dr. Blackwell is Assistant Professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies and Women's Studies at UCLA. An interdisciplinary scholar-activist and oral historian, she works with indigenous women's organizers in Mexico, Latin American feminist movements, and sexual rights activists, all of whom are involved in cross-border organizing and community formation.

“¡Chicana Power!” is a study of women's involvement in the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. It explores the emergence of Chicana feminism within student and community-based organizations in southern California and the Southwest, uniquely highlighting the role of pioneering Chicana activist Anna NietoGomez and the Hijas de Cuauhtémoc in promoting women and lesbian liberation and challenging Chicano nationalism and Machismo.

I want to highlight the emphasis on oral history as retrofitting memory throughout the book. As with other examples of feminist auto-biography, Blackwell’s diligent interviewing of the women involved plays a crucial role in uplifting their histories as leaders of their own liberatory struggles and adds the vividness needed when examining their complicated narratives.

Content-wise, we get a rich description of the multiple locations Chicanas came from in forming their political subjectivities and programs. Whether it be focused on the streets or in academia, these women were not part of one single feminist tradition but came from multiple strands all aimed at expanding notions of liberation. Chicanas pushed the bounds of white feminism and male-dominated Chicano politics creatively, not just reacting to external pressures.

I highly recommend everyone, especially Latines, read this text to remember and learn from Chicanas vital activism!

[roga-el-rojo]

Harvest of Empire - Juan González

Hello friends!

Today’s Latine Heritage Month recommendation expands on the investigation of U.S.-Latine history from last week, providing us an accessible overview of over 200 years of history and inspiring us to create a better future: “Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America” by Juan González.

Juan González is a renowned journalist and professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University. He is a two-time recipient of the George Polk Award for commentary (1998 and 2010) and was inducted into the Deadline Club’s New York Journalism Hall of Fame in 2015. He was a founding member of the Young Lords Party in the 1970’s. 

“Harvest of Empire,” as González puts it, is a book which seeks to explain Latine presence in the US by understanding the US’ role in Latin America. It argues quite convincingly that Latine presence in the US is the harvest of US imperialism as it intervenes across the hemisphere, and specifically analyzes the US’ role in countries like Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. After America destabilizes these nations, their populations seek refuge and González tracks these diasporas' experiences under Yanqui rule.

There’s a lot to chew on in this text, which spans from the 1500’s to the 1950’s. Besides the important historical overviews of Spanish, English, and American settler colonial conquests of indigenous peoples and their connection to each empire’s imperial interests, we’re provided great discussions of the various tools the US empire uses to subjugate Latin America (ex: the weaponization of debt) as shown through case studies.

We’re also given an analysis of Latines ambiguous position in US political life, constantly under the threat of assimilation and political repression if they express desires for self-determination (ex: Puerto Rican and Chicano activists). In a time of rising white supremacist violence, these dynamics intensify and force Latines to fight back on numerous fronts (ex: challenging NAFTA-era neoliberalism).

I highly recommend everyone read this text to understand the importance of Latines in US life and to inspire solidarity with our peoples!

[roga-el-rojo]

Texas: The Great Theft - Carmen Boullosa

Hello friends! For my second post this Latine Heritage Month, I wanted to read a text analyzing Texas’ history in some depth, and found this fascinating piece of historical fiction of a tumultuous period in Texas history too good to pass up: “Texas: The Great Theft” by Carmen Boullosa, translated by Samantha Schnee.

Carmen Boullosa is one of Mexico's leading novelists, poets, and playwrights. Author of seventeen novels, her books have been translated into numerous world languages. Recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including a Guggenheim fellowship, Boullosa is currently Distinguished Lecturer at City College of New York.

Samantha Schnee is founding editor and chairman of the board of Words Without Borders. She has also been a senior editor with Zoetrope, and her translations have appeared in the Guardian, Granta, and the New York Times.

This book is a gritty, messy, and riveting story set in 1859 during the Mexican-American border wars. So as not to spoil the story, I’ll just mention that we begin at a time of increasingly fraying North-South relations inside a border-town. We learn about the lives of many characters within it, and tackle a litany of themes with all of their complexity fully in view.

Among the many themes Boullosa unpacks, her investigation into indigenous dispossession and white supremacist violence hits the hardest. Americans’ dehumanization against Mexican people through their mythology of Manifest Destiny, as well as Mexican peoples’ violence against indigenous peoples’, portray features of settler colonialism vividly. In Texas this is even more dramatic, and I’d recommend folks read “The Counter-Revolution of 1836” by Gerald Horne to learn more.

At the same time, there’s resistance to this white Anglo settler rule by all sorts of marginalized characters in the text. Even though these characters are flawed, their presence highlights the significance of the masses fighting back and trying to survive in the frontier.

I highly recommend all folks in Texas read this book to understand white supremacy’s roots here, hopefully inspiring us to resist its modern manifestations!

[roga-el-rojo]

“Borderlands/La Frontera” - Gloria Anzaldúa

Hello friends,

For my first recommendation this Latine Heritage Month, I want to highlight a famous text that dissects the contradictory identities Latines face inside the “US” from a queer Chicana perspective: “Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza” by Gloria Anzaldúa.

Gloria E. Anzaldúa was an internationally-acclaimed independent scholar, cultural theorist, creative writer, and social-justice activist who has made lasting contributions to numerous fields. This book in particular played a major role in shaping contemporary Chicano/a and lesbian/queer identities.

“Borderlands/La Frontera” is a semi-autobiographical work that explores the Chicano and Latine experience through themes of race, gender, identity, and colonialism. The narrative reflects on Anzaldúa's upbringing in South Texas, her cultural heritage, and the struggles of her community, particularly in relation to land and identity. Her writing aims to connect oppressed Latine peoples with their indigenous cultural backgrounds as shown through her “poet-shaman aesthetics,” her poetry, and English-Spanish code switching.

I really appreciated how Anzaldúa examined the pain and trauma imposed on Indigenous and Chicano communities by colonial powers in relation to their struggles for cultural survival as a form of spiritual healing. I also loved how she critiqued traditional gender roles within Chicano contexts and embraced her lesbian identity as a way of standing in solidarity with queer Latines to affirm current and ancestral queer identities in the face of patriarchy.

Another important and controversial concept Anzaldúa unpacks is mestizaje, referring to the blending and intermingling of different cultural, racial, and ethnic identities, particularly in the context of the Chicano and Latino experience. This can potentially be empowering as it allows folks to re-imagine their histories beyond strict notions of identity and belonging, but can also romanticize the idea of cultural blending at the expense of acknowledging that Afro-Mexican, Afro-Latine, and Mexic-Amerindian experiences are unique.

I highly recommend Latines read this text as a part of our contradictory history.

[roga-el-rojo]

We've Been Too Patient - edited by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh

Hello friends,

For this week’s recommendation, I wanted to highlight another collection of texts on radical mental health before reading books for Hispanic Heritage Month. This one provides thought-provoking essays which reflect on the limits of the typical biomedical model of mental health, how it can and does harm communities, and what we could do to change that: “We’ve Been Too Patient” as edited by L. D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh.

L. D. Green is a queer and non-binary writer, performer, educator, and mental health advocate, teaching composition, creative writing, and literature at Los Medanos College

Kelechi Ubozoh is a Nigerian-American writer, mental health advocate, and public speaker, with published works in Argot Magazine, Multiplicity, Endangered Species, and the forthcoming anthology Trauma, Tresses, & Truth.

"We've Been Too Patient" is a collection of 25 essays by radical mental movements, including those who have experienced medicalized mental health issues. It explores stigmatized aspects of mental health care, including ECT and involuntary hospitalizations, and envisions a non-oppressive mental health field.

I want to share a couple thoughts on these essays. First, I’m ambivalent about some of the discourse around the biomedical and social model of mental health and disability as present in some of these texts since I feel they inadvertently criticize tools some folks use in difficult situations, such as antipsychotic medication. I don’t want to deny folks’ experiences either way, just want to highlight that some people prefer medical options at times.

I also really like the attention paid to the current mental health industrial complex and the way it creates perverse incentives for companies, psychiatrists, and mental health professionals to pathologize people, especially already marginalized communities, in order to gain a profit. That doesn’t mean everyone in the field is a pawn, but that massive changes are necessary to avoid mixing profit-seeking and mental health care, and generally doing harm to patients.

For folks interested in bettering our mental health conversations and practices moving forward, I highly recommend this text!

[roga-el-rojo]

Blueprint and Asylum

TW: Discussion of Suicide, No Depiction

Hello friends,

For my first recommendation this month, in honor of September being National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, I wanted to highlight a couple projects that address mental health issues from a radical lens that y’all might find valuable!

The first is an old magazine called “Blueprint” which was founded by Micha Frazer-Carroll, the wonderful author of “Mad World” which I reviewed in July. Its mission was to platform people with lived experience of mental health problems, and it was mostly active between 2017-2019. I’d also generally recommend reading her material, it’s really thought-provoking!

The second is an ongoing UK-based magazine called Asylum. It was launched in 1986 after being influenced by the anti-psychiatry movement and visits to England by mental health workers from Italy, believing that patients subject to psychiatric violence deserved a space to discuss and process their experiences and fight for a new future alongside sympathetic professionals.

Their newest edition has a couple of sample articles that are well-worth reading, such as a book review of “Undoing Suicidism” by Alexandre Baril which cuts to the heart of this month's awareness initiatives. Other thoughts on how to build the community support needed to counter the social ills increasing the risk of suicide, as well as a re-framing of what suicide tells us about madness in the first place.

I’d love to know if any of y’all have any recommendations on this topic, especially as someone very interested in radical mental health care. I also want to provide some resources in-case they may prove helpful, I hope we can take care of each-other better each and every day!

National 988 Crisis Line - call or text 988, or chat 988lifeline.org

Crisis Textline: text TALK to 741741

Trevor Project: text START to 678-678, call 866-488-7368 (support for LGBTQ youth)

[roga-el-rojo]

Tip of the Spear - Orisanmi Burton

Hello friends,

For my last recommendation this Black August, I want to wrap up with yet another NoName book club recommendation that provides us a framework to understand prison uprisings as harkening to black radical resistance and the multifaceted tactics of repression used against prisoners, all the while centering Black political prisoners oral histories instead of the state’s: “Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt” by Orisanmi Burton

Dr. Burton is a social anthropologist at American University whose research examines the imbrication of grassroots resistance and state repression. His present work explores the collision of Black-led movements for social, political, and economic transformation with state infrastructures of militarized policing, surveillance, and imprisonment.

“Tip of the Spear” makes several compelling arguments around the idea that the US prison system is, among other functions, a tool of hidden warfare against Black liberation movements, and that radical Black prisoners struggled against this system consciously. In particular, during what he terms the “Long Attica Revolt,” a string of revolutionary struggles in New York prisons during the early 1970’s, he examines the various ”pacification” tactics utilized against prisoners in the wake of these insurgencies.

Among the text’s most fascinating points, I want to start with Burton’s concept of “archival war.” Archival war prioritizes oral history and personal archival collections in abolitionist struggle, advocating for the strategic expropriation of captured knowledge from state narratives sparingly given they often repurpose Black narratives for counter-revolutionary ends.

This connects to another aspect of the book which re-interprets the Attica Revolt and the response to it through this lens of Archival War, understanding George Jackson and others as embodying a radical abolitionist history and the “reforms” ushered afterwards as counter-insurgency practices by a racist, capitalist, patriarchal state instead of signs of liberal progress.

I highly recommend everyone read this text, as well as the other pieces shared by NoName book club!

[roga-el-rojo]

As Black As Resistance - Zoé Samudzi and William C. Anderson

Hello friends,

For this next week’s Black August recommendation, I’m foregrounding conversations around revolutionary Black anarchy as a way of creating conditions for Black liberation: “As Black As Resistance” by Zoé Samudzi and William C. Anderson.

Zoé Samudzi is a writer and doctoral student in Medical Sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on the scientific logics that produce race and gender, particularly focusing on transgender health and the ways Blackness is constructed.

William C. Anderson is a freelance writer. His work has been published by the Guardian, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others. You can read many of his writings at Truthout or at the Praxis Center for Kalamazoo College, where he's a contributing editor covering race, class, and immigration.

“As Black As Resistance” is a powerful critique of the anti-Black U.S. settler capitalist project, advocating for radical action in order to help Black people become ungovernable under this regime of gratuitous violence. The authors emphasize the importance of grounding current movements in the Black radical tradition to achieve true liberation, and use personal acknowledgments and reflections as clarion calls for Black self-emancipation.

In particular, they ground themselves in a Black Anarchist tradition that also sees the anti-Black settler capitalist state as unable to be reformed, and one which revolutionaries can’t replace since it can’t guarantee Black safety. Instead, learning from various radical Black movements such as the Black Panthers they call for collective self-defense in the face of oppression, as well as building alternative institutions not based on domination, hierarchy, and control.

Their reflections on abolitionism and anarchism are a case in point. Instead of seeing these as negative critiques of the status quo, they’re opportunities to build alternative institutions that affirm Black humanity, Indigenous sovereignty, and liberate all of us from patriarchy, ableism, class society, and other oppressive systems. This is especially prescient during Black August given the reflection time we’re gifted during this time.

I highly recommend y’all read this book, even if you’re not an anarchist you can find some wonderful inspirations in their reflections and it helps sharpen our analysis on what freedom can look like and how to be cautious on not reproducing harm in our quests for change. I know I’ve certainly learned a lot!

[roga-el-rojo]

Kindred - Octavia Butler

Hello friends,

For this week’s Black August recommendation, I want to highlight a seminal piece of science fiction which unpacks themes of kinship, trauma, and freedom from the perspective of a Black woman surviving terrors and seeking emancipation on her own terms: “Kindred” by Octavia E. Butler.

The inimitable Octavia Butler really needs no introduction, so I’ll just highlight some of her achievements as foundational Afro-Futurist and feminist writer. She received a MacArthur “Genius” Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award, alongside Hugo and Nebula awards numerous times. After a life of harsh struggle in the face of poverty and discrimination, she is cemented as a cornerstone of modern Black feminist literature overall.

Without spoiling the story, “Kindred” is a story about a young Black woman from the 70’s named Edana (or Dana) who is sent back in time to the early 1800’s to save her white ancestor Rufus from being killed in order to ensure she’s born in the first place. This physically and emotionally draining task of saving a slave-owning child becomes even more complicated over time as Rufus changes, placing Dana in worse situations over the course of the book.

Among the various essential themes in the book, the trauma involved with family ties as embodied in Dana and Rufus’ tragic connection deserves attention, especially as their relationship deteriorates and becomes even more agonizing. Kinship itself is a tragedy here and leads to the worst suffering we’ll read, yet it can’t be escaped.

It’s also important to note Butler’s emphasis on Dana’s strength and self-determination amidst the worst white supremacy, patriarchy, and class can throw at her without reifying the “resilient strong black woman” trope. The way Butler also navigates interracial relationships in this light is important, since Butler acknowledges the historical trauma while allowing space for Dana and her husband, for example, to have a more wholesome bond.

I want to thank NoName book club for their recommendations this Black August, thus far each of them have been amazing and this latest one stretched me beyond my typical reading tendencies. I highly recommend this book!

[roga-el-rojo]

Resisting State Violence - Joy James

Hello friends! For our second recommendation this Black August, I wanted to present another critically important text on the ways the United States specifically dehumanizes and brutalizes peoples in and out of prisons, especially Black Women, and what this means for liberatory struggles: “Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender, and Race in U.S. Culture” by Joy James.

Joy James is a famous political philosopher, scholar-activist, and author. She is the Ebenezer Fitch Professor of Humanities at Williams College and has published and edited numerous books, and writes articles on political theory, police, prison and slavery abolition, radicalizing feminisms, diasporic anti-black racism, and US politics. 

“Resisting State Violence” is an investigation of America’s methods of marginalizing people along spectrums of race, gender, class, ability, and other conjunctures in order to execute state and corporate violence upon them. I want to highlight several points from each part of the book since they warrant attention.

Part 1 highlights how patriarchal racial capitalism creates groups of people who aren’t granted human rights and can be killed, especially Black and Indigenous women, and ways in which we can radicalize this human rights rhetoric for organizing.

Part 2 demonstrates how this dehumanization justifies invasions and terror campaigns abroad in places like Cuba and Panama, and as shown through Japanese and Black Women’s experience this includes sexual violence at its core. 

Part 3 notes the unique way Black women are dehumanized as racialized subjects who aren’t considered harmed by sexual violence, as shown through investigating Anita Hill’s case and anti-violence organizing.

Part 4 ends with investigating the ways community activism and education can learn from these limits and tensions to create liberatory futures, breaking through tensions in coalition politics and emphasizing anti-racist feminist human rights organizing, especially by Black and Indigenous Women.

I recommend everyone read this book, its an incredibly insightful reading. Also check out Joy James’ writing generally, she recently published a book titled “New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the Afterlife of Erica Garner” which sounds amazing.

[roga-el-rojo]

Assata: An Autobiograhy - Assata Shakur

Hello friends!

I’m incredibly excited for this week’s recommendation as we start Black August, a month dedicated to highlighting the history of revolutionary Black political prisoners and their comrades in and outside the US. I’ll be highlighting a crucial radical Black woman’s experience today: “Assata: An Autobiography” by Assata Olugbala Shakur.

While Assata needs no introduction, here’s a quick biography before delving into the text. Assata Shakur, born JoAnne Deborah Byron on July 16, 1947, is a New Afrikan revolutionary and former member of the Black Liberation Army and Black Panther Party. She grew up between New York and North Carolina, experiencing the worst of Jim Crow, and was radicalized by the Vietnam War in college. After joining the BLA for a while, she was present in a shootout on a New Jersey Turnpike that left a state trooper dead in 1973. She was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, but she escaped in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum and lives in to this day.

There are too many aspects of Assata's storied history to highlight here, all of which deserve serious reflection. I'll start by noting her incredible bravery and fortitude throughout her harrowing encounters with white supremacy, patriarchal violence, and settler capitalism in and out of prison. As her name shows, she is one who thankfully struggles for the people.

Her position as a socialist revolutionary is important to highlight. She was a part of a militant black freedom struggle rooted in communist thought which sought to upend global imperialism and colonialism to free all peoples, especially black women as some of the most exploited Third World Women (seeing New Afrika as a colony). She also criticized white chauvinist elements of the Left which sadly still exist.

I also want to mention her solidarity with Lolita Lebrón, an incredibly important Puerto Rican nationalist, in prison when no one else would. She knew that decolonization for Puerto Rico was a part of a global struggle for liberation.

I highly recommend everyone read this book to gain first-hand insight into a Black revolutionary's struggle for freedom!

[roga-el-rojo]

Mad World - Micha Frazer-Carroll

Hello friends!

For my last recommendation this Disability Pride Month I wanted to especially highlight "madness" as a dimension of disability that’s often glossed over or de-politicized entirely, specifically focusing on the way class society benefits from this state of affairs and how the Left should promote emancipatory alternatives: “Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health” by Micha Frazer-Carroll.

Micha Frazer-Carroll is a prolific writer, editor, and advocate who delves into the radical politics of madness, mental health discourse, racial justice, and disability justice. A columnist for the Independent, and a former editor with the Guardian and gal-dem, she also founded Blueprint, a magazine exclusively dedicated to mental health issues as well as radical mental health organizations built on abolitionist frameworks.

"Mad World" critiques not only the ways we practice mental health care, but also the terms we use in these spaces, and reveals the deep anti-people ideology at play in professional and lay thinking. Frazer-Carroll also highlights the limits of liberal "awareness" and "de-stigmatization" approaches to "madness" as failing to address how capitalism, white supremacy, cis-heteropatriarchy, and ableism always already condition class society to respond in oppressive ways.

Among my favorite aspects of this text, I really appreciate the emphasis on recovering lost histories of "madness" and mad resistance to inspire our future politics. The critique of the asylum system, for example, is a wonderful introduction to the fact the UK is still haunted by "madness" and its ableist subjugation. It's also helpful in finding out how modern resistance to these institutions have their footing, whether it be through artistic expression as a way to process this trauma or building alternatves to mainstream mental healthcare.

As someone aspiring to enter the field, this is an incredibly sobering read which reframes what we ought to be doing under capitalism. I highly recommend y’all read this to see how “maddening” class society is and how we can move beyond it!

[roga-el-rojo]

Black Disability Politics - Sami Schalk

Hello friends!

This week's recommendation circles back to disability justice struggles in the "US," specifically Black folks often unacknowledged work in the movement for disabled liberation in the past, present, and hopeful future: "Black Disability Politics" by Sami Schalk.

Dr. Schalk is an Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her interdisciplinary research focuses broadly on disability, race, and gender in contemporary American literature and culture. She has published on literature, film, and material culture in a variety of peer-reviewed humanities journals.

"Black Disability Politics" traces Black people's engagement with disability identity and politics and demonstrates the crucial insights and actions individuals and organizations have taken in the past for disability liberation. It also investigates the unique conjuncture that Black disabled folks experience and how past and present Black disabled activists work from that experience, providing much needed reflections on how we can be better today.

First, I wanted to highlight the attention paid to organizations like the Black Panther Party (of which Brad Lomax pictured above was a part of) and the National Black Women’s Health Project (NBWHP) throughout the book. Dr. Schalk's insights into the successes and failures of the organizations are thought provoking, especially as they pertain to the ways we sometimes re-produce ableism in our activism and need to find ways of fighting for each-other's liberation at all times.

Second, I really appreciated the emphasis on non-medical models of disability throughout the text. Tracing the way the NBWHP particularly weaved cultural and spiritual frameworks into their understanding of disability highlighted the ways white mainstream disability discourse homogenizes disabled experience and self-understanding, requiring racialized disabled folks in general to understand their conjunctures more specifically.

If you'd like to really learn about Black disability justice from a historic lens, as well as one filled with insights from today's activists, I highly recommend this book!