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Political Concepts: Structural Adjustment | Justin Lang - YouTube
Channel: Brown University
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i'm really excited to be here today
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um and be in conversation with so many
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great thinkers
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um
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this is my first zoom talk like this uh
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so i'm pretty excited um
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i'm
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grateful for everybody that's tuning in
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it's a little weird speaking into the
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void but
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i know you're all there so i appreciate
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everyone's
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interests engagement um
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and support for
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all the great work that is happening
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here
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i want to start my presentation with the
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poem from my
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friend classmate
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uh comrade zuri armand
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um
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i sent him a paper who a paper was
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composed as part of this talk
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um and as he was reading it he
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immediately
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uh wrote this poem
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um in response to the paper and i think
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it represents the kind of thought
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relationship that we've developed and
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honestly much of this talk is old to
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that relationship that we've had
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together in some of these uh thinking
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through these concepts
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um so i'll start with the poem the line
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for jennifer lara
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nothing
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but rivers tinted red
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like libations or crust
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brick erupting
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deferred dreams pipe
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dreams
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wield it
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as garrett's
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last breath
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first breath
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empty of articulation
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so today my talk will be focusing on the
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concept of structural adjustment
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by sexing this concept
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on a recorded public talk
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i'm reluctantly placing myself within
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the sphere of the afro-pessimism debates
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but here we are
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within these debates i've rarely seen an
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assessment of frank wilderson's use of
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structural adjustment
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so i see it as a critical term for
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understanding what i find most useful
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about what i see afro-pessimism
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attempting to do
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which is create space for revolution
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black revolutionary thought and desire
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at a recent talk on afro-pessimism
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earlier this week
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professor horton spillers posed the
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following question
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what
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what is the usefulness
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of heuristically understanding oneself
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as a slave
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i argue that an analysis of structural
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adjustment can provide a productive
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answer to this question
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and maybe more importantly
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provoke the inverse question
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what is at stake in not
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heuristically understanding oneself as a
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slave
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to address these questions i find it
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useful to engage afro-pessimism
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alongside the work of the political
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prisoner and theorist george jackson
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jackson's writings illuminate
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clarify and extend afro-pessimism
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while whitterson is focused on thinking
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at the level of black political desire
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george jackson helps us think about the
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relationship between desire
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strategy and organization
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in blood in my eye
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george jackson writes quote
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as a slave
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the social phenomenon that engages my
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whole consciousness is of course
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revolution the slave
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and revolution
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frank willison
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offers a resonant claim
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in his recent text afro-pessimism
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social death can be destroyed but the
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first step towards the destruction
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is to assume one's position as a slave
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and then in parentheses assume
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not celebrate or disavow
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and then burn the ship of the plantation
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in his past and present incarnations
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from the inside out
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jackson and willison each arrive at the
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link between the slave and revolution
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through an analysis of blackness as a
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peridynamic
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structural position
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rather than a cultural identity
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that is inaugurated and elaborated
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through slavery
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for both of these thinkers
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slavery is not a temporal condition it
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is a relational dynamic between social
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death and social life
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that has not been disrupted by the
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abolition of child slavery
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the institution of civil rights or
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constitutional decolonization
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there are no temporal or spatial limits
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to anti-black violence
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even when accounting for
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historically varying instances of
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anti-blackness
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there is no black time that proceeds or
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succeeds the time of the slave
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the structural position of blackness as
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slaveness
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places the black outside of the
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discourses of civil society
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and the black subjection to gratuitous
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violence and perpetual captivity
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enable civil societies existence and
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coherence
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the black does not have access to the
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language of rights entitlements
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legitimate arrival or sovereignty the
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language of humans the language of
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reform
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cannot seek to reconfigure civil society
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it must destroy it according wilson here
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civil society itself
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rather than its abuses or its
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shortcomings is a state emerged is a
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state of emergency for the black
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williston argues in the acknowledgments
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to red white and black
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that a quote unflinching paradigmatic
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analysis is essential
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to a movement dedicated to the complete
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overthrow of an existing order
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citing the compromises of the charters
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movement in south africa he argues that
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again quote our inability or
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unwillingness to hold the moderates feat
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to the fire of a political agenda
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predicated on an unflinching
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paradigmatic analysis
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now allow our energies and points of
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attention to be displaced by
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to pragmatic considerations
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so if afrope
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and it says slaveness
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structural adjustment
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refers to black politics
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so is my connection working sorry
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okay i'm just keep going
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um
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i'll start the sentence over if
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afro-pessimism is arguing for an
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unflinching black politics that is
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rooted in an understanding of the
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structural position
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of blackness as slaveness
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structural adjustment refers to black
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politics that disavow this position of
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blackness and slaveness
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and attempt to move as if the black has
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the structural capacity of humans
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structural adjustment forces slash
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invites the black to believe that his
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condition does have analogs
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and forces invites the black to speak in
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the language of rights
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entitlements inclusion and access
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and move to the taxes of a petition and
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appeal to the state
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reformism and compromise
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black political desire is routinely
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structurally adjusted away from
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embracing the destruction of civil
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society and toward attempts to reform it
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this process is enacted at the level of
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state practices and within radical
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social movements
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this is why afro-pessimism spends
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considerable time critiquing
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multi-racial coalition politics as they
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often work to delimit and crowd out the
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demands and aspirations of the black
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so wilderson introduces the concept of
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structural adjustment in the
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introduction to red white and black
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as he's described in the political and
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landscape afro-pessimism is intervening
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again
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wilderson argues that in the 1960s and
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70s that the 1960s and 70s were a period
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in which revolutionaries had
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considerable power to pose the question
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of the destruction of u.s civil society
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jerry sexton argues that following this
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period the u.s state has subjected black
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thought to quote
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large-scale domestic structural
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adjustments
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the intense level of state repression of
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black movements in the 70s and 80s led
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to the death political incarceration
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or exile of black revolutionaries taking
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up confrontational postures against the
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state
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the ascendance of a neo-colonial black
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leadership black political leadership
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class
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a process dylan rodriguez refers to as
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multicultural white supremacy
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has saturated black politics with ideas
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of representation electoralism and
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reform
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the openings made by integration have
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created a growing black middle class
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which have given numbers of black folks
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access to
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borrowed institutionality
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through which they can distance
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themselves from the position of the
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slave
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these historical processes have
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contributed to the adjustment of black
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politics towards reformism
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this period of domestic structural
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adjustment coincides with the
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international project of the imposition
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of structural adjustment policies and
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programs
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on african states
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wilderson attends to this link
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stating that structural adjustment at
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the level of political desire and
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analysis
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is quote not unlike the structural
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adjustment debtor nations must adhere to
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for the privilege of securing alone
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this relationship illuminates with
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zakiyah iman jackson calls the burden of
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inclusion into a racially
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hierarchicalized university universe
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sorry universal humanity
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the extension of human recognition of
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incorporation
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is a violent process
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in which inclusion and objection go hand
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in hand
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the violence of humanization and
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incorporation
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of the black into the us
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and the black state into the
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international market requires an
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adjustment of politics
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to stretch wilderson with george jackson
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his international analysis reveals the
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significance of stifling the development
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of black socialism communalism
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and the development of black politics in
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the adjustment of black politics towards
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reformism to quote jackson directly
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the african societies which allow
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capitalism to remain
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are still neo-colonies
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slave states
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dominated by westernized black
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right-wing puppets
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i argue that the destruction of civil
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society that the slave embodies involves
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black communization
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total abolition
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this international reading of structural
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adjustment also reveals that the level
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of u.s civil society
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the adjustment of black politics away
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from revolution and towards an
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investment in u.s citizenship
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is critical for the stability of u.s
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imperialism
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so now moving to my last section
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how then should we think about an
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unadjusted black politics developing it
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and its contents
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i want to return to george jackson to
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think through this question
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jackson provides resources for thinking
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about refusing structural adjustment and
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developing an unadjusted politics in his
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writings in soledad brother
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jackson theorizes the condition of
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blacksmith as slaveness and is brought
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to a more acute awareness of this
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condition through his experiences of
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incarceration
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slavery is not confined to his
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incarceration
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yet it is incarceration and especially
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the removal of the prospect of parole
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which i see is the loss of the capacity
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for structural adjustment
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which enables him to see the relations
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of blackness and slaveness more clearly
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in williston's essay the prison slave as
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hegemony silence scandal
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wouldn't distinguishes between the black
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prison slave and prison slave in waiting
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these figures occupy the same structural
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position
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with the only difference being whether
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one is currently in prison
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thinking jackson and wilson together
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structural adjustment forces invites
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prison slaves and waiting
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to see themselves as temporally and
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spatially distant from those who are
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already captive
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for jackson acknowledging blackness as a
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state of captivity was key for posturing
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himself towards revolutionary activity
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he states quote
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as soon as all of this became clear to
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me
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and i developed the nerve to admit it to
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myself
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that we were defeated in war and
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announced captives slaves or actually
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that we inherited a neo-slave in
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existence i immediately became relaxed
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always expecting the worst and started
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working on the remedy
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george james and frank willison both
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have argued that contemporary abolition
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politics has distanced itself from the
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thought and practices of the captive
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joy zane specifically has argued that in
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the shift from what she calls the
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revolutionary to the reactionary period
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academic and non-profit directed
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abolitionism has over determined
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abolitionist thought moving it away from
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revolutionary struggle and presented
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abolition as achievable through
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incremental non-reformist reforms
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the ascendancy of defund the police and
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other state mediated pathways toward
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abolition
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as the frameworks through which
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abolition has been articulated in the
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aftermath of last summer's uprisings
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is evidence of this
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the popularization of a procedural
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approach to abolition
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relies on an assumption that the
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carceral state will wither away
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obscuring the ways in which the state
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will hold on to its foundational
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relations of carceral violence
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it engages the state as if the black is
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in a clientellus relationship with the
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state rather than an adversary
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procedural abolition is structural
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structurally adjusted
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it delays revolutionary preparation to
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cite george jackson
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with each reform revolution became more
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remote
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it acquiesces to the state's preference
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to redirect black insurgency into
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reformism rather than total abolition
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again court in jackson reformism was
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allowed
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refusing adjustment and thinking through
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the position of the slave
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reminds us that the black is not in
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community with the state
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quoting jackson again
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the enemy is aware
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determined
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disguised totalitarian and mercilessly
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counter-revolutionary
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the position of the slave argues again
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to quote george jackson fascism has
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temporarily succeeded under the guise of
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reform
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the only way we can destroy it is to
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refuse to compromise with the enemy
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state and its ruling class
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so i'll close with one more long
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quotation of george jackson from blood
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in my eye that i think gets at the
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urgency
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of what i'm attempting to argue here
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to the slave
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sorry to the slave revolution is an
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imperative
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a love inspired conscious act of
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desperation
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it's aggressive
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it isn't cool or cautious
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it's bold audacious
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violent an expression of icy disdainful
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hatred
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it can hardly be any other way without
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raising a fundamental contradiction
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if revolution and especially revolution
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in america
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is anything less than an effective
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defense attack weapon
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and a charger for the people to mount
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now
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it is meaningless to the great majority
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of the slaves
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if revolution is tied to dependence on
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the inscrutabilities of long-range
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politics
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it cannot be made relevant to the person
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who expects to die tomorrow
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there can be no rigid time controls
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attached to the process
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that offers itself as relief
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not if for those whom is principally
[969]
intended are under attack now
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thank you
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