Incredible Boston Review and its lead ed editors. All of us have been proud contributors to the rich intellectual tradition curated by Boston Review, and i just think its really important to say in this moment before our countrys more famous publications were willing to run pieces on police and prison abolition, racial capitalism, black radical thought and the ethics of resistance, the boston the review really provided one of the major forums for these ideas to be debated with seriousness and subtlety, and it still does. There are not many publications who can match Boston Reviews commitment to publishing black thinkers, giving space to black liberation across the political spectrum or the bolder questions with of justice, democracy and citizenship. So its a real honor to be here at a panel cohosted by Boston Review. And just as a reminder, as serena said, the contributions from this evenings event which i hope you continue to contribute all go to three important organizations. Critical resistance, one of the leading voices, national bailout, an organization devoted to ending mass incarceration and the practice of pretrial detention and one womans love, an organization committed to impairing women and girls in stockton, california. Our format today will be about 4045 minutes of discussion that ill moderate between the panelists before i take questions from the audience. Please use the q a button below, and send your questions all throughout the panel. Well try to get to as many as possible. Now, ive been excited about this for weeks. As far as im concerned, its hard to imagine a possible of scholars more a panel of scholars more exciting than the one youre about to hear today. And i apologize for not being able to go into long introductions because all these people are so, so accomplished that it would take all the. So i want you to look them up and hear more about their work, but im just going to go in alphabetical order for quick introductions. So, first, we have a woman i think is the most influential and important historian of the carceral state in our generation and the newlyappointed professor of law and associate professor of africanamerican studies and history at yale university, my dear sister, elizabeth hinton, whos author of the prizewinning book from the war on poverty to the war on crime the making of mass incarceration in america. Second we have one of the few towering interpreters of africanAmerican History, uclas gary nash professor of American History, robin kelley whose classic works hammer and hoe, race rebels, freedom dreams and his biography of Thelonious Monk have reshaped how we write and think about race, class, gender and resistance. Third we have my dear brother, harvard brother cornel west who, in my mind, is a true intellectual giant. His writings on philosophy, social theory and cultural criticism especially keeping faith, race matters and democracy matters amount to an indispensable archive for thinking through the spiritual, cultural and political crises of the modern age. And last but certainly not least, we have keeangayahmatta taylor, arguably the most prominent black radical thinker of our general ration, and shes produced some of the most widely read and debated reflections on contemporary politics and the movement for black lives. Assistant professor of africanamerican studies at princeton, keeangas work include from black lives matter to black liberation, how we get free; black feminism and the prettier prize finalist, race for profit, how banks and the Real Estate Industry undermine black homeownership. Pulitzer. This is an amazing group, and without any further ado, i hope you give them a round of applause at home, and lets dive into what they have to saw. You drew on reverend barbers campaign and say we live in a third reconstruction and im curious what you mean by that phrase and what is at stake in this process. Thank you. Great to be with you. I would give credit, the answer published the book and democracy. What you are proposing is recognizing first reconstruction and what the voice reconstruction, and if you looked at the different moments. To include everyone, was crushed under jim crow and disenfranchisement. The second reconstruction again was an attempt to send a marker see for everyone. It is based on a kind of constitutional understanding that the topic of america hadnt been fulfilled. This fundamental constitutional claim to keep our struggle and provide the kinds of rights, the second reconstruction deals with issues of housing and everything. The reconstruction i would argue does not end in poverty but it does remake not just the United States but recognizing the disposition of White Supremacy, the abolition does not simply inform, is not simply talking about better jail, better policing, better training but a new means of justice as a whole and we dont just mean overturning affirmation or affirmative justice based on separation or oppression or creating new possibilities for life, to deal with seeing the bodies of all the constraints of gender and sexual norms. Based on the evolution of projects. There is a backlash. The first and second reconstruction didnt simply fail or completely overthrown, what we are witnessing now is potential for that overthrow but what we are facing is Something Else in between that. It is really unprecedented. Seeing how Central Prison and Police Abolition is with the vision of the third reconstruction. What is interesting about the last few weeks is these ideas have been more central to debate than at any time in my memory or in American History but even with the insurgents of that line of critique into the public sphere, no secret that large segments are ambivalent or at least afraid of the implications of the demands for defunding the police or abolishing the police. They know the history, selective hearing, calls for reform and worried people will only hear defund the police, not invest in everything else. They dont have the luxury of treating Community Violence as an abstract question. In the weeks following George Floyds killing, murders in chicago rose by 79 , new york and baltimore saw 31, 17 jump, one thing that concerns people in these communities is the violence seems different than violence youve written about from the 1990s which was more tightly packed to the drug economy and they are concerned about what to do with the possibility of abandonment in a time of austerity and what to do with crime in the midst of demand for abolition. If you could speak to what kinds of Community Crime and violence these people calling for defunding the police can give to persuade members to adopt their views and support the reconstruction that was outlined. Im not convinced there was support for what was talked about so this is an example, the Organization Im fundraising for that provides services to families affected by violence in stockton. Stockton is a place with higher rates of poverty like chicago and many of the families that lost their loved ones to violence if those murders are labeled as being related are completely denied any kind of time compensation benefit. That is where the owl movement steps in on funding services, offering memorial services, empowerment and prayer as a way to deal with these problems in a place that in the 5 years since operating there are 25 million so i think already we are seeing a shift. We are seeing this shift from things premised on violence, reimagining what justice means, that is what abolition is all about. Just briefly it is the effect of having these conversations about harm in the black community is with police and incarceration is really important. Not as if the social harm we are seeing exists in a vacuum disentangled from police incarceration because theres a cycle of sanctions and Community Violence and people who harm others are harmed themselves. What we need to be asking is why is it that in communities where police and surveillance and incarceration will large people of color are more likely to die prematurely and this process really begins as Police Forces are militarized in the 1960s and we get rid billions directed against external forces, not just during long hot summers of the 1960s. Even conversations about social harm or violence in more recent years, how this external violence directed against state forces turns internal. Of 3pronged when the government begins to wage war on communities of color. There is a struggle that emerges within black communities against one another so these conversations cant be separated from police or incarceration, incarceration is the root of many of these informal economies and collective confinement provide the means to facilitate the informal economy in prison, not the visitor but the guards, the police. What we need to be asking is how the state violence precipitates violence and disentangling the conditions we are seeing in places like chicago and baltimore today. You want to follow up on that . Yes. The first thing i would say is crime is a real problem in the lives of communities of poor and working class black people and to sugarcoat it, i do think it is important to say that this debate and discussion emerges from the failures of what has proceeded. In terms of the issue of police reform, part of the reason things have gravitated so quickly, defend the police is the failures of the reform in 201415 are so new that it is hard to explain away and dismiss, elected officials try to do, to distort the history of failures of their own form. We remember the centrality of body cameras that this would solve the problem. More black police officers, all this stuff, the same recycled arguments since the counter commission that was sprinkled in, we all heard them and seen them, that is one part of it. The second part is imagine we spend such a grotesque amount of money on police and here we still are talking about the wave of crime. In chicago, 40 of the operating budget, a spike in crime during the summer over the last few weekends so clearly investing exclusively in policing does not solve the problem and the lack of resolution opened up the possibility of new formulations, new ideas around it and part of it is saying we spend the last generation defunding public education, defunding public hospitals, defunding public libraries, defunding the entire Public Infrastructure that makes cities operate and that hasnt work and it has produced in the second decade of the Twentieth Century the same kinds of issues we were dealing with throughout 3 quarters of the Twentieth Century. Maybe we need to do something different. I think there is a lot of space for support, deliberation, conversation about this issue as we head out but the Immediate Response of the Political Class is either too radical the idea, dismiss it out of hand and point us back to this narrow framework of police or no police. When you are talking to the ordinary people dealing with crime on a daily basis in their neighborhoods, that is the option, police or no police, you automatically foreclose the different kind of conversations. What we are saying is we want to redirect the tens of millions of dollars that go to police so we live in cities where Public Health workers are addressing garbage bags and reusing masks during a pandemic and the police look like they just stepped out of some hollywood feature film about futuristic policing 100 years from now. We need to change the calculus where the schools get funding, there is investment in jobs, investment in healthcare, investment in a different quality of life and if you put that in the poll, if you frame the discussion around that, should we be paying the police for that or should we be investing in transforming the institutions that make up public life in cities, it is a nobrainer, not a contest but we havent framed the debate that way and that is part of the urgency of these conversations, that there is an ideological battle. We have been told there is not enough money, that budgets have to be cut but somehow that never applies to the police. We have to change that. Lets change the discussion and have a ideological i am confident in our side. I dont know about theres. This raises the next Crucial Point which is the picture you are painting is one that sounds a lot like the democratic socialists vision that animated much of the resurgent left over the last few years that anchored a certain wing of the Bernie Sanders campaign, which is the most successful in aquatic socialist president ial campaign in history but leads us back to a crucial problem. When those were on the table and electoral arena, they lost, black workingclass voters voting for joe biden. You put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the sanders campaign. Youve been on the board of tsa for decades. Youve been making this case in churches and communities. What is your autopsy of the sanders defeat and its prospects for rejuvenated democratic socialist vision even if it is just a strategic resistance, really crucial there. How to overcome the voting block on your account that would be more profoundly well served by this vision of politics when they trust the judgment of James Cliburn . I salute you, my dear brother and wait for your expertise on the Civil Rights Movement and dialogue with my brothers and sisters, each one a profound source of inspiration for me, who they are as human beings and serena as well. Was we are dealing with is the massive failure of black leadership to be able to intervene in such a way that we convince brothers and sisters vision, analysis and work we need on the ground that puts working people at the Center Remains on the fringes and instead we have liberal black leadership and intellectuals, cheerleaders that dont allow the vision analysis and when the social movements hit they want to act as if they are at the center of it rather than on the other side so we have to be able to tell our brothers and sisters of all colors the truth and the truth is always a painful walk in the truth is we are living in an undeniably declining american empire with a militarization state, militaristic, dropping bombs in the middle east, 800 military units 53 to every dollar goes to the military. We have to talk about defunding the pentagon but at the same time a wall street centered economy that brother bernie was talking about, and our leadership is tied to wall street so that wall street domination is a precondition a black leadership and we cant even get at the fundamental source but we have tomorrow 5 our culture with everything for sale, with notions of integrity and notions of honesty and taking a wrist or going against the grain and the preoccupation with what the culture is about which is money, spectacle and image so that we have to be honest and tell our fellow citizens, so this and other for which we come and given this particular moment, too many leaders and intellectuals, too many artists, too many actors and entertainers who are not open to this kind of vision and analysis, called freedom dreams for a vision and reality. Two best pieces that im talking about. How do we change america and end politics in the New York Times, how to get into those neoliberal venues is a beautiful thing but your voice is so prophetic in that way and we need voices as a cacophony of voices but rooted in truth telling, integrity, honesty so we can convince folks if black people are the most progressive voting block in the american empire but cannot support the most progressive candidate in the history of the empire when it comes to president Bernie Sanders stuff is happening. The neoliberal hegemony of our leadership is getting in the way. We need to be critical in a loving way. Keith sweat on your bingo card, you are the winner today. This is a great transition. I want to talk about a piece in the times and you Say Something that struck me. You say class tension among africanamericans have produced new faultlines, the romance of racial solidarity cannot overcome. You call for a new era of black politics but i want to press two questions i hope you can clarify. The first if this class fracturing is so profound that it cant overcome the romance of racial solidarity cant overcome it why call for any new black politics at all, why not just pronouns the whole edifice of black solidarity dead once and for all . You might think the whole rhetoric of shared universal racial vulnerability to Police Violence and the appeal to black solidarity that framing engenders is not just analytically misguided but obscure is the number of White Brothers and sisters, native american brothers and sisters killed by the police you think is not just analytically misguided but politically dangerous, think of someone like adolph reed who say these frames allow for black elites to redirect the moral revulsion at Police Violence toward diverse of fighting corporate boards and things like that that dont address the problems of economic democracy you are laying out. Why dont we just give up the language of black politics altogether so when you speak out in the New York Times everybody can see more clearly was it is at stake and criticize the Congressional Black Caucus . Black politics still as our residents and it is not because of something i say or something a talking head says, black people continue to be an oppressed minority in the United States and when there are tensions among black people, the black Political Class there is still a vulnerability to racism even when their class position might mitigate it. I can because nicholas muriel bowser, of washington dc, doesnt change the fact their politics are neoliberal, and attacked by donald trump in the Republican Party and it is racist and sexist, the reason she can have residents among ordinary black people is because of that. What was talked about, link they stand still exists. The precivil rights era where there are class tensions among africanamericans with jim crow, and cingular spaces where there had to be some means of coexistence. Things dont exist to the same degree but there is still sympathy that exists among black people. That is why barack obama despite his kind of benign presidency, when it came to improving the condition of black people is incredibly popular among africanamericans, Michelle Obama is incredibly popular among africanamericans, i do think the further we get from the period of civil rights and political insurgency that erupted during that time period, the more class lines and black communities are entrenched. I started thinking of that article probably three weeks before it came out and what i was originally going to begin within the article was the mayor of new orleans who was in the midst of breaking a strike of black sanitation workers by using imprisoned black laborers to break the strike of black garbage workers who were trying to ask for an increase in pay, hazard pay because their lives were put at risk by covid19. I sort of some of it is provocation. There has always been over the last 50 years a black politics from above and from below so if anything we are seeing the reemergence of black politics, development and emergence of black political left with movement for black lives and proliferation of organizations that formed over the last five or six years which point to a tension that has always existed but is more ingrained and is becoming much deeper as you continue to have black political leaders, in cities and suburban areas that puts workingclass black people in direct competition with municipal management and that is just the dynamic to look into for new alliances, that you describe in your question, part of the reason, i will end with this, part of the reason we are seeing such a large participation in blm protests over the month of june because what black lives matter has been successful in convincing a layer of white people that black lives matter and white silence cannot continue to prevail but i also think it speaks to the way weight millennials come to the realization their lives dont matter either they been confined to a life of debt, marooned in jobs that will never allow them to pay off that debt and the whole premise of the American Dream has been lost for generations of ways people as well. They path all. Eyes us, they call it death by despair, alcohol addiction, opioid addiction and suicide but whatever you call it represents a crisis in what this country used to stand for and the black movement as it has always done shows a potential way out of that and that has attracted young white people to black protests. That seems like a more viable alternative than joe biden. That is the fragmentation of black politics in the postcivil rights era and the way in which these new movements offered new lines of solidarity amid broader socioeconomic changes. The point about the failure of racial ideology to fracture solidarity along its normal lines is well taken. The earliest moment of the postcivil rights era, the black power movement, the moment a lot of the dynamics got crystallized, the first time black municipal leaders take power, the first time people are having to rethink the relationship in a sustained politics from below and black elected officials but i dont see a lot of reflection on the black power era in this moment. I thought it would be something for us to discuss a bit and i was hoping robin d. G. Kelley might say a little bit about two questions that have been on my mind. In the wake of black power there were two criticisms from the left that had a real force for intellectuals coming out of it. One is the emphasis on cultural politics, symbolic politics was too easily commodified and turned into a capitalist lifestyle. You might think where pet smart is sending notes on how much black lives matter and amazon is telling me about black lives matter, really awful policies toward black workers were in a similar moment, that leads me back to a thing dramatized quite well in the anecdote about new orleans, where his labor in all of this . One thing, in the fight between different organizing models the black power activists that pushed for labor unions to be the major vehicle of black struggling this moment, if they didnt lose in that moment they lost in the public imaginary coming out of it and im curious about your sense of those critiques and whether weve learned the right lessons from that. To the point to go back the simple answer is the first black power conference, corporations are very quick to seize the language of black struggle, that happens all the time but i want to go back to a couple other examples, the sanitation workers strike, 1977 under mayor Maynard Jackson who broke the sanitation workers strike, would not negotiate, fired all the strikers and was a model for reagans attack, in some respects, talking in terms that even today neoliberals classify in terms of that you see that in that period of black power and you go back earlier than that, not just class tensions but a struggle over who will represent black liberation, black capitalists claimed the doctrine the new politics conference in chicago in 57 doctor king was shot down because he presented a much more of a class analysis who pushed a more corporate line and because king pushed an antiwar position, a more reflective politics that we talked about. With one or two specific things. We havent done enough homework to know the relationship with black power in the labor movement. There is ample evidence, that came out of the Drum Movement and in the congress that came out of the lead, where the program of any movement in history, was antiracist and worked on control and build alliances with arabamerican workers, black workers you Congress Demanded reparations, the revolutionary black forces, wasnt just about people having cadillacs. Weakening the state legitimacy and alliances with other progressive movements and because of the failure of white workers to act in support of revolutionary programs but the other reason is a Rainbow Coalition of junior partners, black and brown who in the 1970s did not push that program. They were defeated by a black mayor or black members of city council. The final thing i would like to mention, when you look at the role the labor pays, the most important Labor Union Movement was the National Rights organization, july 20th, the date marked for decisive backlash coming up if any of you know about it i would say more about it but it is the attempt to build or fight for 15, or the fact that essential workers are not getting support, so corporations declaim black lives matter is amanda land exploiting and undermining black workers. Having said that. Reproductive labor, the National Organization still exists in some respects fighting this fight recognizing labor is essential work. I would argue. And the National Rights organization pushing for this and one last example if you look at the leadership of Maureen Taylor and marion taylor. And water shut off in detroit and privatization, they are fighting for environmental justice, peoples ability for basic needs. And black power, workingclass organization trying to push a radical abolitionist agenda. Instead of thinking of it as we are starting to see a divide, it is divide we have to Pay Attention to. What cornell said we have a group of politicians obtaining the mantle of speaking on behalf of the oppressed people playing a role in questioning the insurgents movement that continues to push for an agenda that is obligatory for all, one that sees this framework. I said a lot, sorry. I want to make sure all our audience, 800 people in attendance. Im about to open up to everyone but i want one last question to elizabeth just so we can get to the audience if we could try to be brief but i thought it would be good following on robins point. One way you might see experimentation robin is talking about is as a failure of federal policy to support grassroots organizations and create more democratic space for what we call agonistic democratic public. Grassroots organizations being able to contest things happening in welfare, bureaucracies and public parks department. Before i turn it over to everyone, the final question is for you, is this a moment to turn back toward federal support for that kind of investment and is there a reason to try to persuade activists who see no interest in working along the state at this time to give up the purest stand, for maximum feasible participation that you talk about in your book and in your house. Part of it is people have lost faith or investment in the state for many reasons weve been talking about because the state is not worked for them. There was this moment the outcome could have been different and that is one of the real tragedies of that era is there was this window where the federal government was granting autonomous local organizations directly and as robin pointed out every time there has been an extension of Citizenship Rights or any kind of abolitionist tendency from slavery to jim crow, this insidious disease rooted in racism and capitalism takes hold for that new criminal law or surveillance state, that is where the failure was of the first and second reconstruction even though the federal government was instrumental in securing the most successful aspects from independence in black schools to the building of black institutions. The federal government has been this difficult or troubled ally in terms of bringing about Racial Justice but it has played a role. We have been talking about the need to move away from neoliberal forms of government and in order, this new progressive surge of candidates, new conversations within the party, one hopes that if we bring about a vision of governance, with health care, rising to address the climate crisis, we can then return to this vision where the federal government is funding local efforts and if we are going to address and Reimagine Society in the way we have been talking about and address these issues and Racial Injustice in a new way we have got to see power to people. We have got to facilitate that Wealth Redistribution by empowering people on their own terms. To imagine a different way that federalism and governance can be structured. Thank you for this. Just to try to get as many as we can we will try to keep our answers short and everybody should feel free to jump in. I might pose it to a person but everyone should feel free to answer. So one is a push back at this description of bl m as a movement from below. I read the question as one raising the problem of whether that is an appropriate description. What would make it a movement from below . The class identity of its participants . It is obviously the candidate many leaders supported, having picked up and to add to that you might think theres another question about how to think about the legitimacy given the new structure of movement politics. I remember the new yorker piece about Alicia Geiser being stuck in traffic on the bridge because there was a protests from a black lives Matter Organization that she didnt know about but at the same time if there is a word given and funding given shes one of the people put forward as the person to receive that. How do we think about the legitimacy question of the new Movement Structure and whether it is appropriate to describe it as a movement from below . There is a danger in simply looking at place and quantity as opposed to quality of analysis and vision and how in fact we move from one point to the next. What i mean by that is this. For those of us who believe black people will never be free in a predatory capitalist civilization with imperial links around the world, level the wealth inequality and most of the money and militaristic and policing activity rather than fulfilling social needs. That is the analysis if we had time to fill it out that is crucial no matter who is out there. You can have this massive out there, you see that in the trump rally. Part of the problem is we are losing our sense of morality, honesty, decency and spirituality and imagination but we think it is just a matter of what is out there, the people and so forth rather than the quality and the level of what people see, what people analyze and what people are courageously willing to tackle. We dont have time to get into it now but you got to play your self and learn to be nonconformist and follow through in relation to your love or before and working people and disproportionately black. Of White Supremacy were to disappear tomorrow, but america remains predatory capitalist and imperialist, then i am with black agenda reform and margaret and the others, we know those who try but we need to be honest about that and that is the lens in which we need to look at it. Any movement, there are two things. Any movement is more than its structure is, its leadership. I think if you go out to these demonstrations the New York Times tells us involves 26 Million People but these are ordinary people at these protests, people who have been locked out of power. We had an uprising in the United States. This is a movement from outside and from below. And even within black lives matter itself regardless of the particular position of individuals who might make up an organization, this is a movement that is trying to transform basic aspects of American Society and stand outside the realm of power. Of course with any movement there are questions about democracy. Accountability, who speaks for whom. In some ways these questions were unresolved in the first generation of black lives matter, they remain unresolved in the current manifestation of protests but i would say every social movement has to wrestle with those questions and how its political agenda is formed, the dialectic membership and leadership. Everybody wants to say we know there are always leaders but there are leaders who are accountable and leaders who are not. And Free Movement has to figure that out but those questions dont diminish or transform the quality or the way we can understand or characterize this as a movement that is trying to transform fundamental aspects of the United States. Next question which i thought was interesting. A question on the table that i will try to tie together about the framing of the third reconstruction and they are asking so much momentum in the Democratic Party, the left wing of the Democratic Party is around the new deal as an anchoring frame for policy, the new new deal. What is the distinction, the benefit in framing things around reconstruction rather than the idea of the new deal and to add a little addendum is reparation a part of that discussion and is that a central piece of why it might matter . The new deal was not about fundamental reconstruction or managing of the transfer of wealth to poor and working people without them being in that position so when we talk about reconstruction weve got to be revolutionary calling for fundamental transformation, fundamental transformation is about a transfer of wealth, resources and respect, something much deeper in that regard so the neoliberal wing of the ruling class, trump and his folks, none of them want to talk about fundamental transformation, they are talking about managing the system, dont want to allow for a focus on working people being in a position of power where their voices are shaping their destiny and having significant control but it is an important distinction where liberalism is about social programs much more about siding with the flag and supporting the vietnam war instead of fool employment and decolonization, calling for worker power, people power, all power to the people. That is the black Panther Party because they were focused where they should have been focused, that moment in the 20 fifth chapter of matthew, part of my christian tradition. Do you want to jump in or can i ask another question . Cornell said it better than anyone. Take your bingo card. There is a question on the table and the thing you have written so powerfully about and something i want to ask you, they are wondering what is the role of internationalism, what should be the movement for black lives orientation toward internationalism and geopolitics and i will put a little more, another kind of thing on it i would like you to speak to. For those of us who studied his rights and black power era we understand black internationalism that operating within a cold war perspective. The thing that is true about the soviet union and the anticolonial struggles, they are aspiring to a kind of the gala terry an ideal. The geopolitics are really different, anchored by states that do not openly espouse the gala terry and ideals, china is not engaged in a democratic project. The middle east is not engaged in the gala terry and democratic project. Fascist movements all over europe clamoring for power. It is a much different political realm. If someone talked about internationalism, is there anything we can do that is more than showing moral solidarity . To go back to one thing i will make a distinction from black lives matter, there is a coalition of the disorganization, many of which are engaged in International Relationships or solidarity. To understand mobilizing postkatrina new orleans without seeing the role the organizations, the relationship with venezuela or cuba or even in this moment when talking about brazil or france or england or all over the globe the murder of george floyd and all the others who have been murdered touched a nerve which is why these demonstrations happened but try that to the same organizations involved with black lives but doing crossborder organizing, building labor relationships given sweatshop labor and the no Threat Campaign in china or haiti, these are the alliances being built ahead of time. The reconstruction ideal, the national vision, it is a Global Vision because it is the global economy. Cornell said the distinction between a movement for transformation into a political party, it was not reconstruction. It embodied aspects of it. The Democratic Party, the reconstruction movement, part of what we have to do to reconstruct the stories look at organizations and movements that may not be necessarily mass movements but whose vision is profoundly radical but possibly the dismantling of the nationstate as we know it. I draw attention to it. A wonderful collection of entities around the collective. In a moment of real selfinventory and selfreflection and im wondering for someone like you who thought so much about the contemporary movement, is there something that we could learn from struggles elsewhere around the world from the global style . What can the movements learn, not just moving beyond a u. S. Focus but what can we learn from a place of humility about whats working in other countries to change this country as you put it. I think one of the things thats different now aside from the collapse of National Liberation movements which really see thirdworld solidarity of the previous period is the way that global ization has bound together different countries, g7 or g8 and the and the way they have cohered around a set of political and economic that get diffused around the world. Theres several different examples that we can look to. There are movements for housing rights in berlin, for example, you know, after a Long Campaign activists in berlin were able to get the City Government there to impose 5year rent freeze or not raise rent in a 5year period. Theres different kinds of movements for housing rights across europe and in cuba and south america, for example, that have become mass movement. Some of the struggle around what robin talked about, the politics of reproduction, social production have gain currency where march eighth, Womens International day protest have actually been real political strikes with mass movements, with mass demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people and so some of this. I think we can look to in aspirational way as to what size and influence our movements need to get to as a way to actually transform politics but also speaks to historic issues that we have in this country that involves the labor movement, that involves the institutionalization of social democracy and social authorization in the first place, the historic issues in the u. S. With the development and cohesion of a political left and how one does that with the Relentless Assault with the mean state. These are all questions not necessarily that other places have figured out that they have different histories and traditions that may mean that that level is more advanced place that we can learn from, but it highlights some of the deficits that we suffer from and have to and have to fix. I think what we are seeing now is that we dont have forever to figure it out. I think some of the things that we thought somewhere off in the distance, whether climate and the temperature of climate, important issues to take on but these are issues in the future, the future is now and its here and theres an airborne pandemic, no end in sight no matter what the happy talk of the Trump Administration or whomever else may be. The reality is we dont know where this is going. Theres urgency to being serious and engaging them. There are flash points of struggle that we can look at but its not in and of itself enough to overcome the deficit that we have here that we as those of us who are trying to reconstitute a see ourselves as part of the left have to take on. Elizabeth, i dont know if you want to add anything else. I know that you have been looking at Prison Reform movements globally, if you wanted to add anything else to keeanga to think about particularity even when we take on the lessons from the other places. I think one of the things of many that covid19 has unmasked is just the bad that the incarceration has brought and transition of mars massive incarceration is hot spot through which covid is spreading. You have tens of thousands of people who are stuck there behind bars who are sentenced at very young ages and who are now men and women should be released and dont pose danger to society and are in prison getting covid. Again, as we are thinking about Reimagining Society and reimagining what Public Safety is, that needs to be linked to how we are thinking about incarceration and incarceration the anchor of so many systems that we are talking about. The idea of cutting Police Forces in half as immediate necessity, paid with and should be paid cutting prison population in half which has been a discussion that weve been having for a while, and, again, what kind of resources does initial step open up the providing new kind of way of approaching issues of justice and safety, one not tear and not violence. What we are seeing with the pandemic is really underscoring that. Prisoners 300 of dying than others. Its a stunning again, back to keeangas point theres no way to segregate problems the way that late 20th, 21st century politics was built upon and its time to dramatically wrestle with the questions that confront us. We have time for one last question and i want to allow all of you all to speak to it and i will pose it to brother west first which is, you know, as it has come up many times throughout the discussion, one of the things that i think has people really excited about this moment but also a bit weary is the enormous enthusiasm among millions of nonblack people particularly young people for protests, for supporting the demands of lm, for having a radical reckoning with the catastrophic noble past of this nation and theres a question that always comes up and its come up here about what white allies can do, what nonblack allies can do at this moment and i also want to add to that a bit about what what kinds of practices should allies or people engaged in solidarity be weary of because theres a lot of things that are being marketed or being championed under the name of authentic allyship and its an important time, i think, to signal to people what is we havent thought as much as we have about these questions and what is a selfundermining use of their time and energy and effort and emotional energy, so i was hoping that you might speak to that and let everybody else very brief, one is weve got to go back to history. You look at the lives of john brown and lydia maria and Abraham Joshua and we can go down. Theres a whole lot of brothers and sister who is have been part of freedom struggle but they didnt have a discourse of white fragility. They had discourse about integrity and discourse of what it means to have solidarity, you see. Thats very important because White Supremacists civilization has a genius of making every issue evolve around white fears, insecurities and anxieties rather than black suffering, indigenous suffering, trans suffering, its move no matter how sophisticated, no matter how progressive, we have to we have to ask them here. We are going to talk about solidarity across the board. Im in solidarity with my gay, lesbians, straight, i want to make sure their lives have dignity and respect like everybody else and this is why i want to end on, the fascist gangster in the white house and depression of levels of unemployment, under employment, yes, we have been living in a failed social experiment on every front, the economy, the nation state, educational system, most of our religious institutions have failed to actually again rate what a democracy ought to which a healthy public life in which people are not poor and have to deal with inadequate housing and they have access to health care and access to quality education. How do you fail better . You have to have spiritual resources to deal with despair and thats what we learned from brothers and sisters in west bank under Israeli Occupation or india or roma in europe. They are defeatless in their determination to be decent human beings before the worms get their body. If you miss on spiritual resource you miss on the greatness of black folks. Thats what it was back, thats what it was, quest for excellence to get beyond what they had been exposed to and pass it onto Younger Generation given what was inside on the soul and if we miss on that a lot of this is simple. I say amen. I just think that allies have to go. Im sorry, im not interested in allies because it makes it feel that in our America Everything is great, we just need to improve your america so no, have you looked at what is happening in their america . I mean, i talk about it before. The life exert antsy, white men and women have gone into reverse. This is not happened in the developed world and it is driven by alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide. Thats right, thats right. Its not white privilege, thats white we need to be figuring out what the hell to do to change cluster fuck of a country. Racism is black peoples burden but its all of our problems and you can look at what is happening now with covid because the Democratic Party and the republicans were so skillful and adept at using racism to undermine and ultimately destroy our social welfare system, it means now some years later during the pandemic it is completely broken and that means that we get 1,200dollar checks if youre lucky before august and thats it. Thats what social welfare produces in the United States and why is it like that, because they use racism to undermine the whole system of social welfare but convincing white people that black people were free loaders trying to get something for nothing. So racism is all of our problems and for regular people, the 1 dont care, but for everyone else, you know, convincing white people that youre making that theyre making, you know, a dime and black people are making a nickel and havent we gotten over, thats, you know, thats a little bit of what we are dealing with. We have to move this conversation beyond allyship to talk about what is happening in the United States and politics and tactics of understanding history that are necessary to transform it so that all of our lives can improve and saying that doesnt mean that we are all suffering the same. When we see the pandemic is affecting african americans, we see what is happening in the border, there are people who are suffering more than others but in the United States, the country of suffering, doesnt have to exist and a trillion dollars a year. The resources exist so that this level of suffering does not have to exist, so we have to fight to change the political dynamics and sufferings, period, and you dont do that with liberal discourse about allyship. Well, i think its hard to imagine a more powerful and steering way to end this conversation, where do we go from here, i think you may have thought my introductions at the beginning were over the top. I hope you understand how wrong youve been proven, this panel was incredible and lived up and exceeded my expectations and i encourage all of you to do a couple of things, one, live with integrity, find a movement and find a way to contribute and also support independent bookstores and support the organizations that weve listed to fundraise for. National bailout, critical resistance and al out of stockton, california and i want to thank rob and kelly, elizabeth, cornell west, keeanga tailor for their devotions, you cant get off the couch and do this type of thing and they committed life for issues and it shows, thank you for coming. I love you, everybody. Each and every one of you. Youre watching book tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Here are programs to watch out for this weekend. On our Author Interview Program Science journalists Debra Mckenzie reports on how covid19 became a Global Pandemic and offers thoughts about future outbreaks. The heritage foundations Mike Gonzalez argues that identity politics is dividing america and cnn chief legal analyst tubin weighs in. We are thrilled to have our authors and covering many issues including pandemic, politics, economic, state and city news, immigration, law and education in her career emily had positions in new york, dallas, pittsburgh and atlanta. Tonights featured author melissa korn, previously she wrote for dow jones news writer
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