Loading summary
Transcript38 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome friends, to Economic Update Extra. A special continuation of our interview for the Patreon community. As a sign of our appreciation for the support you have provided and continue to provide, for which we are grateful. I'm here talking to Z and Sean about Black Socialists of America. Tell me, what kind of support in general have you been able to generate in the year that you've been going and what does it suggest to you about where your future lies in terms of participation of people?
- [00:41]
B
Is this where we tell them about the George Soros checks?
- [00:45]
C
Oh my God.
- [00:48]
A
No such luck.
- [00:49]
B
No, no such luck, Tower.
- [00:50]
C
No, but the support is quite literally overwhelming.
- [00:55]
A
I mean, tell us about it.
- [00:56]
C
Yeah, we have, I think there's 10 core people involved in the day to day processes. As of now, it's all volunteer ran, but we have hundreds of volunteers waiting virtually, you know, all across the country, you know, waiting to see what the next steps are, how they can get involved. And you know, our platform is already over 33 some thousand people just in a matter of months, virtually, which is pretty incredible. And on top of that there's a lot of artists and celebrities and creatives who want to get involved, not just donating money, but they want to get involved in terms of helping to aid and shine a light on what socialism is. So it's been pretty great. And in terms of leftist organizations that are already out there, Democratic Socialists of America, various chapters all across the country, and most specifically the Libertarian Socialist Caucus has been the most supportive in terms of giving us lending us help, whether it be in web development or connecting us with different people. Is there anyone else?
- [02:14]
B
We have our partnership with Cooperation Jackson.
- [02:17]
C
Yeah, well, yeah, we should mention Cooperation Jackson and also symbiosis. We have a formal partnership with these two groups. I'm not sure if you're how familiar your base is with Cooperation Jackson, but they're a network of predominantly black owned cooperatives based out of Jackson, Mississippi. And for a lot of people into, whether it be economics or the Solidarity economy movement, they're really excited about what's going on there. It's sort of a model for, I mentioned the word before, but building dual power at the municipal level. And so through our platform we're trying to spotlight the achievements that are happening there, the challenges that they're facing there. And we're also trying to pool in resources to help support and build on what they're doing there. Not get caught up in NGOism and virtually just being this bureaucracy that sits and supports a bunch of people's careers, but making sure that Resources are getting to the right place. And Symbiosis is primarily a research collective. And what they're doing is pretty much connecting all of the, you know, co ops and worker self directed enterprises, communes, all of the alternative democratic enterprises in the US and trying to put together a congress of municipal movements. And they're also internationalists. So they're trying to, I mentioned before, make sure that in this cooperative movement and this building of dual power, it's a very explicitly a political movement focused on what we would call international socialism. But from the, you know, from a working class standpoint, just democracy everywhere, democracy in the workplace and in the common sector and getting enough political power to subsidize those sorts of relations and get us to a socialist society.
- [04:25]
A
I'd just like to underscore the importance of it. You know, having done this program for a while, the difference now from what things were even five years ago, let alone 10 or 15, the very fact that you can say you've been doing this for a year and you're overwhelmed by the response in the past, folks like you would have been, whatever the opposite is overwhelmed by the lack of response and would have inferred wrongly that there wasn't interest and support. There was. But something really has changed in the United States. Whatever people say about Trump and all of the right wing, there's something going on the other direction too, that creates the kind of response to you that you just described that is really remarkable. What is it? And I know this is difficult, but what are you hoping to do with this kind of response you've gotten? How are you going to provide activities, connections with the people that are interested?
- [05:27]
B
It's a matter, I think, of creating a network that they can communicate with each other and work with each other conveniently. I think that's probably, that's probably been our biggest obstacle, is that there's just so many people in so disapparate geographical spaces that it's just, it's difficult for them to unite together and build something together. I think the most important thing is to provide a platform and a network that they can communicate effectively with each other.
- [05:52]
C
Yeah. And I think one thing that we want to do is with, when we open up for donations and we get more resources, we want to put that towards developing systems, digital systems and tools that lend themselves to decentralized autonomous action. So people, BSA can be sort of a hub of information, of resources, whether that be monetary or whatever. So they can, when they get past, okay, I'm a socialist, okay, I've Deconstructed what capitalism is. Now I want to do something. They don't need to go through some bureaucratic system or wait on anybody. They can get what they need and get linked into the networks that we're building and start building democracy where they're at. And I think that's the ultimate goal that we're pushing for. And we also obviously want to make sure that poor and working class black American communities don't get elbowed out or stiffed out of these opportunities, of this information, of these resources. And that's, you know, our primary focus. We're trying to reach poor and working class black Americans, help us come together because things are going to get worse. It's going to get much worse than before. It gets better. And so we're trying to come in and build around these concepts of mutual aid and many things we've mentioned before.
- [07:21]
A
For people listening and watching. Where do they go? What do they do? How do you want to connect to them?
- [07:27]
C
Right now, go to our website, BlackSocialists Us. We're actually in the middle of a major website upgrade that should be coming out within the next few weeks. But right now, if you go to blacksocialist us, we have a glossary of socialist terms. We have a resource guide, we have a very brief sort of introduction to our strategy as an organization. But where most of our following is on Twitter, laksocialists, we also have an.
- [08:01]
B
Interest forum on there. If you want to join what we're doing, just go to join us at the top and then just fill out a form, tell us where you're from, what you think, all that good stuff. Eventually we'll have a donate button just so that people can support us financially. But we're working on it, guys. Yeah, we'll get there soon.
- [08:22]
C
Most people love the Twitter, I just want to say, because a large part of what we're trying to do is engage with popular culture, which I think historically the left hasn't done a real great job at doing. They kind of come in with this. Well, one, a lot of people are insular, right? They have this idea that if the idea is mainstream, if it's out there, there's something wrong. There's something, you know, bourgeois. Yeah, there's something corrupted. We're trying to make everything as accessible as possible. So if you go on Twitter, you might see us going back and forth with Elon Musk or some other, you know, some other celebrities or artists. And we've been doing that. I think that's a huge part of why our social media platform has gotten so much attention and so many people have wanted to get involved.
- [09:10]
A
So tell me, is there a particular demographic? That's the language we use these days. I mean, you've mentioned black working class people.
- [09:21]
C
Yeah.
- [09:21]
A
What about students? What about older folks? How are you approaching different communities?
- [09:30]
B
So when we say working class, we're not using it in sort of like the hack people who work in factories sort of sense. Right. We're talking about people. When I talk about the artificial separation of labor and ownership, we're talking about people that do not, cannot rely on property ownership for their income. These are people that have to enter the labor market, have to work for wages. So student is someone who will eventually have to sell their labor. Somebody who's unemployed is someone who is suffering because they cannot sell their labor. Somebody who's underemployed is someone who is selling their labor but is not making enough on that return to live effectively. So all of these people who have fallen sort of on one side of that artificial separation are people that we want to reach out to, people who can benefit from that reunification.
- [10:15]
C
Yeah, and as I've mentioned before, education is really one of the biggest, you know, it's the first thing that we're focused on. And we already have, you know, black students in different institutions, universities all across the country who want to start something where they're at. And so that's something we're, you know, we're trying to come up with a system and infrastructure that makes sure that something like that projects, whether they're working groups or whatever it may be, are as effective and also safe as possible. You know, because there is that reality, too. You mentioned, you know, how it's different now than five years ago, but as soon as we really got into this, we really could see why it hasn't existed for so long. Because maybe 40, 50 years ago, there's the real threat. Being, you know, being a black American is one thing, but being a black American socialist on top of it, your. Your life is in danger and you're, you're putting yourself out there. You're making yourself vulnerable. And we've mentioned this before, if there was a way we could have done, done this without ever showing our faces or our personal identities, that's what we would have gone for. But we recognize, you know, people have to see our faces. They have to see. But safety is really important and making sure that we're being effective, we're reaching. But when you say demographics, I usually think of age, age groups, no, not just.
- [11:47]
A
But, yes.
- [11:49]
C
But I think so far it's been mostly young. Young black Americans, millennials, who have engaged with us the most and who have been the most. It hasn't just been millennials. There's lots of older people and not even just black people. People all across the world, quite literally, who are engaging and learning from the stuff we're putting out. But I do think there will be a. A younger sort of. You know, we want to engage with younger artists, creatives, whether they be rappers, singers, and really sort of bring. Bring people in that way to the. To the information. But I think the foundation is going to be a rich hub of materials, books that they're for anyone, really. I mean, outside of, you know, little. Little children. We're talking about that, too, right? We're talking about that, too. But, yeah, yeah.
- [12:47]
A
You know, that. That's not a bad idea for children's books.
- [12:51]
C
Absolutely.
- [12:52]
A
High school students. These are very important audiences. Anyway, a last reflection from you. Something is changing in the United States. The very fact that you're doing this, the fact that you're getting support, the fact that you're excited and enthused about where you can go with this, these are enormous signs. Before we even get to what you will achieve, that this is happening. This is extraordinary. And I just wanted to close by saying, how do you account for yourself? Why did this grab you, this opportunity, this project?
- [13:29]
C
That's a deep question.
- [13:30]
A
What's going on? Well, it's always a little bit personal, too. It's about you as a person as well as the times you live in and whatever final thought you might have about that.
- [13:40]
B
Oh, man. I guess, you know, it's kind of like the. Like the. Being an addict, you have to hit rock bottom before you can. Before you can kind of just, like, you reach this point of, like, despair at the state of the world, and then you find yourself in a position where you could either passively accept it and just kind of commit yourself to being miserable for the rest of your life or, like, actually convince yourself to do something about it. Yeah.
- [14:04]
C
So I think the roots. For me, I think about my father. My father's almost 70 years old, grew up in segregated schools, and just even from being a child, hearing about his experiences under that. And then as I got older, you know, I'm a creative, so I'm. You know, there's a rapper by the name of Tupac Shakur.
- [14:30]
B
I've heard of that guy.
- [14:31]
C
Yeah, he's pretty well known. But one thing about him was that I think separates him from a lot of artists historically is he didn't really have the political or economic education that I've been afforded and other people have been afforded, but he saw the power in using music and art to mobilize people, not just in a broad, surface level way, but in a very, very political, tangible way. You know, reaching. Reaching people through the music and then moving them towards something that will liberate them. And I think, you know, that's at the roots, the base of how, you know, I got here. And I was conflicted, you know, the last three years, especially living, you know, I studied in Japan and I ended up teaching English out there. And seeing Trump become president and all that, it was just. I felt a call to come back and fight it out. And I guess that's.
- [15:38]
B
He had the Angela Davis method. He was studying abroad, and then he found.
- [15:42]
A
Well, on behalf of many of us, thank you for coming back and doing this.
- [15:46]
B
Thank you.
- [15:46]
C
Thank you.
- [15:47]
A
And the same to you. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank all of you in our Patreon community. I hope this has been as interesting for you as it was for me, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.