Ya' Cousin Cleon
OG COUCH CORNER HUSTLA
@Crude Abolitionist @Thomas @Those Who Run
here are two histories which have always battled each other, publicly and loudly: domination’s history—the history of the class in position to dominate the masses—and the people’s history, which is the history of colonized and oppressed peoples struggling and triumphing from the ground up. Between these two histories, narrative and autobiographical writings have been a key tool in correctively challenging the historical narratives placed onto oppressed and colonized people, from the era-defining writing found in Malcolm X’s autobiography, to the consciousness-shaping contours of Assata Shakur’s Assata. And still, one must wonder if such a definitive, important piece of autobiographical writing has come from our generation yet, or if any attempts have been made. However, as we move into a new generation characterized by celebrity activists steeped in social media rather than intellectual study, it seems domination’s recent history finds a comfortable bedfellow in the work of some high-profile activists, including activist DeRay Mckesson’s On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope.
Who Is DeRay Mckesson?
In an incredibly short time, DeRay Mckesson — in his branded blue vest — has become almost synonymous with the Black Lives Matter movement for many outside observers.
Mckesson is, as Mychal Denzel Smith recently put it, a frustrating figure. To people on almost all places on the political spectrum, aside from the liberal center, he is controversial. On the left he’s often described as a “neoliberal” whose entanglement with celebrities and Hollywood signify a covert love affair with capitalism, and whose oversimplification of inequalities seems to be designed to cater to white liberals. In addition, those on the left have critiqued Mckesson’s practice of consistently perching himself above the Ferguson Uprising, contrary to the wishes of Ferguson residents. For those on the right, DeRay’s very existence as a Black, gay activist speaking against police violence has opened him up to the violence of racist trolls, harassment and ad hominem diatribes.
In the thick aftermath of the Ferguson uprising, Mckesson and other celebrity activists like Shaun King and Johnetta Elzie became online beacons who shared images, videos and articles related to protests taking place around the country. As their followings grew, organizers around the country waited for something; a manifesto, a plan, a political framework, a radical beginning. Years later, upon the announcement of the publication of On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope, many believed this would be it — an etching of futures imagined.
The False Dichotomy of Reform vs. Revolution
Black resistance has occurred at every stage in American history. Liberty, the right to act according to one’s own will, was denied to Black people, and the conditions Black people suffered from the state during the periods of slavery and its afterlife have developed radical tendencies within our community. As C.L.R. James said, “What Negro, particularly below the Mason-Dixon line, believes that the bourgeois state is a state above all classes, serving the needs of all the people? They may not formulate their belief in Marxist terms, but their experience drives them to reject this shibboleth [principle] of bourgeois democracy.” Ultimately, the Black Experience is one which constitutes an ongoing struggle by Black people to both ideologically and physically challenge and free themselves from exploitation and domination. The goal of many social struggles is freedom, but, for McKesson, the “goal of protest” is simply “progress.”
In his collection of essays, McKesson limits the radical capacity of protest by merely defining it as an activity that “creates space that would otherwise not exist, and forces conversations and topics into the public sphere that have been long ignored.” But protest, or more accurately direct action, is more than that. Direct action can refer to various forms of activities that people themselves decide upon and through which they organize themselves against injustice and oppression. They are processes of self-empowerment and self-liberation. Through direct actions individuals collectively seek to end, or at the very least, reduce harm inflicted by oppression and exploitation. For example, what W.E.B Du Bois described as a “general strike against slavery” was not an attempt to create space for further national debate on the humanity of enslaved Africans, but an extraordinary attempt by enslaved Africans to be actors in their own liberation. The Harlem rent strikes of 1934, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Mississippi Summer Project were not about forcing conversations, but forcing concessions and transformations of society.
Unfortunately, McKesson consistently both romanticizes and ill-defines protest. By narrowly reducing direct action to “protest” and divorcing it from its rich legacy of revolutionary theory and tactics, he boldly makes assertions that are at odds with both history and reality.
In the essay, “Taking the Truth Everywhere,” Mckesson confuses criticisms of reformism with criticisms of reforms. He first claims his more radical opponents “decry reform as a weakening of the spirit of protest.” He then goes on to say, “A radicalism that at its heart is about dismantling the status quo in favor of an unimagined ‘better future’ is not in fact radicalism but a cold detachment from reality itself.”
However, the struggle around immediate issues and reforms is not the same as reformism. Within both the Marxist and broad anarchisttraditions are views that stress the necessity of creating popular movements built through struggles around reforms: concrete changes in policy and practices that improve people’s lives and mitigate harm. Reforms that are won from below can not only improve popular conditions, but also strengthen radical mass movements by developing confidence and building capacity among individuals and political organizations. Nineteenth-century Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta said, “We shall carry out all possible reforms in the spirit in which an army advances ever forwards by snatching the enemy-occupied territory in its path.” Revolution isn’t a spontaneous event. It’s a process of self-realization, self-organization and self-liberation through education, community building and direct action. The pursuit of incremental reforms absolutely has a place in radical activism.
Not only does he seem to intentionally misunderstand the concepts of protest and “radicalism,” Mckesson also seeks to utterly delegitimize the entire idea of revolution or revolutionary action. By painting an image of the left that sets up a false dichotomy between leftist organizing and reforms, he makes the opposite of reformism seem idealistic, unrealistic, sophomoric. The distinction he misses, however, is simple: to support immediate reforms is not the same as being reformist.
In the recent nationwide prison strike, for example, the most vocal and ardent supporters of the strike were prison abolitionists such as ourselves who are against the notion that prisons can be reformed in a way that would turn them into a positive force. Instead, we struggle to win what abolitionist scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls non-reformist reforms — reforms that produce “systemic changes that do not extend the life or breadth of deadly forces such as prisons.”
As abolitionists, we also understand the need to meet the immediate needs of those facing the brunt of violence from the prison machinery, and thus we support each demand from the prison strike organizers while knowing we must continue to build momentum toward its abolition.
here are two histories which have always battled each other, publicly and loudly: domination’s history—the history of the class in position to dominate the masses—and the people’s history, which is the history of colonized and oppressed peoples struggling and triumphing from the ground up. Between these two histories, narrative and autobiographical writings have been a key tool in correctively challenging the historical narratives placed onto oppressed and colonized people, from the era-defining writing found in Malcolm X’s autobiography, to the consciousness-shaping contours of Assata Shakur’s Assata. And still, one must wonder if such a definitive, important piece of autobiographical writing has come from our generation yet, or if any attempts have been made. However, as we move into a new generation characterized by celebrity activists steeped in social media rather than intellectual study, it seems domination’s recent history finds a comfortable bedfellow in the work of some high-profile activists, including activist DeRay Mckesson’s On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope.
Who Is DeRay Mckesson?
In an incredibly short time, DeRay Mckesson — in his branded blue vest — has become almost synonymous with the Black Lives Matter movement for many outside observers.
Mckesson is, as Mychal Denzel Smith recently put it, a frustrating figure. To people on almost all places on the political spectrum, aside from the liberal center, he is controversial. On the left he’s often described as a “neoliberal” whose entanglement with celebrities and Hollywood signify a covert love affair with capitalism, and whose oversimplification of inequalities seems to be designed to cater to white liberals. In addition, those on the left have critiqued Mckesson’s practice of consistently perching himself above the Ferguson Uprising, contrary to the wishes of Ferguson residents. For those on the right, DeRay’s very existence as a Black, gay activist speaking against police violence has opened him up to the violence of racist trolls, harassment and ad hominem diatribes.
In the thick aftermath of the Ferguson uprising, Mckesson and other celebrity activists like Shaun King and Johnetta Elzie became online beacons who shared images, videos and articles related to protests taking place around the country. As their followings grew, organizers around the country waited for something; a manifesto, a plan, a political framework, a radical beginning. Years later, upon the announcement of the publication of On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope, many believed this would be it — an etching of futures imagined.
The False Dichotomy of Reform vs. Revolution
Black resistance has occurred at every stage in American history. Liberty, the right to act according to one’s own will, was denied to Black people, and the conditions Black people suffered from the state during the periods of slavery and its afterlife have developed radical tendencies within our community. As C.L.R. James said, “What Negro, particularly below the Mason-Dixon line, believes that the bourgeois state is a state above all classes, serving the needs of all the people? They may not formulate their belief in Marxist terms, but their experience drives them to reject this shibboleth [principle] of bourgeois democracy.” Ultimately, the Black Experience is one which constitutes an ongoing struggle by Black people to both ideologically and physically challenge and free themselves from exploitation and domination. The goal of many social struggles is freedom, but, for McKesson, the “goal of protest” is simply “progress.”
In his collection of essays, McKesson limits the radical capacity of protest by merely defining it as an activity that “creates space that would otherwise not exist, and forces conversations and topics into the public sphere that have been long ignored.” But protest, or more accurately direct action, is more than that. Direct action can refer to various forms of activities that people themselves decide upon and through which they organize themselves against injustice and oppression. They are processes of self-empowerment and self-liberation. Through direct actions individuals collectively seek to end, or at the very least, reduce harm inflicted by oppression and exploitation. For example, what W.E.B Du Bois described as a “general strike against slavery” was not an attempt to create space for further national debate on the humanity of enslaved Africans, but an extraordinary attempt by enslaved Africans to be actors in their own liberation. The Harlem rent strikes of 1934, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Mississippi Summer Project were not about forcing conversations, but forcing concessions and transformations of society.
Unfortunately, McKesson consistently both romanticizes and ill-defines protest. By narrowly reducing direct action to “protest” and divorcing it from its rich legacy of revolutionary theory and tactics, he boldly makes assertions that are at odds with both history and reality.
In the essay, “Taking the Truth Everywhere,” Mckesson confuses criticisms of reformism with criticisms of reforms. He first claims his more radical opponents “decry reform as a weakening of the spirit of protest.” He then goes on to say, “A radicalism that at its heart is about dismantling the status quo in favor of an unimagined ‘better future’ is not in fact radicalism but a cold detachment from reality itself.”
However, the struggle around immediate issues and reforms is not the same as reformism. Within both the Marxist and broad anarchisttraditions are views that stress the necessity of creating popular movements built through struggles around reforms: concrete changes in policy and practices that improve people’s lives and mitigate harm. Reforms that are won from below can not only improve popular conditions, but also strengthen radical mass movements by developing confidence and building capacity among individuals and political organizations. Nineteenth-century Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta said, “We shall carry out all possible reforms in the spirit in which an army advances ever forwards by snatching the enemy-occupied territory in its path.” Revolution isn’t a spontaneous event. It’s a process of self-realization, self-organization and self-liberation through education, community building and direct action. The pursuit of incremental reforms absolutely has a place in radical activism.
Not only does he seem to intentionally misunderstand the concepts of protest and “radicalism,” Mckesson also seeks to utterly delegitimize the entire idea of revolution or revolutionary action. By painting an image of the left that sets up a false dichotomy between leftist organizing and reforms, he makes the opposite of reformism seem idealistic, unrealistic, sophomoric. The distinction he misses, however, is simple: to support immediate reforms is not the same as being reformist.
In the recent nationwide prison strike, for example, the most vocal and ardent supporters of the strike were prison abolitionists such as ourselves who are against the notion that prisons can be reformed in a way that would turn them into a positive force. Instead, we struggle to win what abolitionist scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls non-reformist reforms — reforms that produce “systemic changes that do not extend the life or breadth of deadly forces such as prisons.”
As abolitionists, we also understand the need to meet the immediate needs of those facing the brunt of violence from the prison machinery, and thus we support each demand from the prison strike organizers while knowing we must continue to build momentum toward its abolition.
