The Christmas Rebellion

This evening I'd like to uh welcome you to here Walter Rodney, who will be speaking on crisis in the periphery of the world system, Africa and the Caribbean. Dr. Rodney is a historian, a political economist, who's taught at the University of Dar es Salaam as well as the University of the West Indies and Cornell. He's lectured widely throughout the Caribbean, the United States, Africa, and Europe.

He's also the author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and co-author of The Silent Class Struggle. In Guyana, he's a member of the Working People's Alliance and without further ado I'd like to introduce Dr. Walter Rodney. Issues concerning the general condition of Africans on the African continent, of African descendants, the black people of this country and the Caribbean. And when, on previous occasions, I have had the opportunity to join with you around these issues.

I have sought at all times to try and establish a methodology more than anything else. not to seek to be a soothsayer, to gaze in into any crystal ball to foretell the future. but to try first of all to grasp problems in their correct dimensions and in their complexities. to describe accurately and therefore to lay a basis for a scientific analysis. And out of that, presumably, all of us collectively could begin to see the light, could begin to see the possibilities of the solutions.

Because what matters most of all is that the questions be placed very clearly. When those questions are identified, it seems to me that we are on the way to getting an answer. But there are no answers to questions which are muddy, questions which are unclear. And I would like to remind some of the brothers and sisters who have been with us for some time.

that on previous occasions we had cause to discuss specific issues of the African and Pan African world, like the significance of the regime in Uganda. like the trend of events in Angola, like the pattern of social development in the Caribbean. And I would like to feel that on most of these crucial issues, the position which I myself sought to adopt in previous times has been vindicated. And I say this not with any intention of a personal vindication, but to illustrate

The possibilities of the method to which some of us subscribe. A method which for one thing seeks to unite our comprehension as so called scholars with our reality, with our being, with our day to day activities as we intervene in the historical process to produce change. There is a saying, particularly on Marxist and left-wing circles, that one ought to engage in praxis, to unite theory and practice.

And very often that phrase is used somewhat cheaply. It is bandied about, perhaps without a full significance, without a full appreciation of its significance. You hang in your heart where you at.

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Groundings Podcast. As always and here with Politics and friendship. I'm really going to let you in Assalamualaikum I'm really happy to be here. My name is Darien. I'm uh an organizer and a student. in Boston. And for this conversation, this episode. We have a really special guest, a Q Anthony Omene. I want to pass it to you and let you introduce yourself.

Uh yeah, so my name is Q Anthony Omeni, and I am a podcaster, a writer, and uh coming up soon I'll be able to add the title of author. my resume. Um, I'm also I mean I say amateur historian just because I'm taking way longer to complete my masters than I should. But I I do spend a lot of time researching slave history, particularly in the Caribbean.

Uh and my area of expertise is in the Christmas uprising of eighteen thirty one. I know you well enough, Q to know that that was a a humble introduction from But we'll uh I'll let you slide this time. And I really wanna thank you for your time. I know that we are in the middle of sort of

recording right now in a time of the year when everyone is really busy with friends, family, work, everything in between. So thank you for making the time for this. And really we can dive right in. You mentioned um Some of your research and writing deals with the history of enslavement um in the Caribbean. And that's really what we wanted to talk about, especially the undercurrents of histories that often get lost, like histories of revolts, um, and those sorts of things.

And so I'm curious just to start off a more general question, you know, what are some of the biggest misconceptions about resistance to enslavement and colonization by African people? And to go a step further, you know, who would you say is responsible for these misconceptions? A couple of things really bother me when I hear about people talking about slave insurrections, rebellions, etcetera.

Uh one of them is when people refer to the Haitian Revolution as the first successful slave rebellion or slave revolution. And I think when they say successful, what they mean by that is that there was an a complete overturning of society. The capture of the social order by formerly enslaved people. That's um that's something that I think sets the bar I don't want to say too high, but it flattens out all of the various types of slave resistances that have happened over the centuries.

You have to understand it's the first not the first successful slave rebellion uh by black people, it is the first rebellion in recorded history where enslaved people overturned the social order and and captured it. hasn't happened before. The closest that we can get to even approximating that is the Spartacan Revolution or the or the Spartacan Rebellion, where enslaved Roman gladiators escaped their escaped their quarters Killed their masters.

built an army and and marched on Rome. And they were ultimately slaughtered. But it goes down in history as as a an archetype. for people who f have felt oppressed or felt under the yoke of aristocracy, uh to the extent where Toussaint L'Overture was called the black Spartacus. At the same time, we can look at that as a type of rebellion or revolution or uprising, but we can't make that the sum total of what uprisings, revolutions, and rebellions look like.

And throughout black history, throughout the history of the African diaspora, there are countless examples of these. You know, there there were books filled with volumes of these types of revolts. And then you have to ask yourself the question, what is the ultimate goal of the revolt? even if you were to think about, for example, you know, Greeks and Romans.

You know, th there's there's is it is it uh is the r the purpose of the revolt to kill the masters? Is it to emancipate themselves? Is it is it to become maroons? Is it to change the order of society, to in to institute reforms? And the Haitian Revolution, I think, encomp encompasses a lot of these, but there are a multitude of rebellions by enslaved African peoples that capture some aspects of these these ultimate goals. I think personally, if you

turn your plow against your master as a weapon and you kill your master, that to me is a successful revolution. That's revolt. That's that's changing your your social order immediately, even if you die as a result. So I yeah, I think people have a sense of uh having ingrained or or internalized this idea of African peoples as a naturally enslaved peoples.

I mean like you know, that that that idea of natural slavery has really just done a number on us. And we don't give ourselves enough credit. We always talk about we're the only people who I hear this one all the time, we're the only people who well, we're the only people that have

had that level of institutional slavery inflicted upon us for this many centuries. And the fact that people found ways to revolt from as small as poisoning the master's food, to running away, to s sabotage, industrial sabotage, to all out revolts and revolutions, killing your masters.

Ye these are people living in conditions that you could not possibly understand. You know, I I thought I knew a from slave history before I started my study, and I read a uh I read a story. It was the autobiography of Mary Print. uh an enslaved woman, you know, who was enslaved in Antigua and Barbados, uh eventually was able to be emancipated in England proper. And I'll tell you, it gave me nightmares and it made like it made me cry uncontrollably.

the the kind of cruelty and barbaricness inflicted unenslaved people. And I'm I'm not gonna get too deep into description on this podcast. I don't want to you know bring up a bunch of memories or traumatize anybody, but you can't I I can't possibly imagine how people can treat other people that way.

So, you know, I think I think one thing that we do have to give our ancestors is a hell of a lot more credit for being able to s survive through what they survived through. But yeah, that's that's really my My biggest pet peeve where it comes to talking about slavery and revolutions is when people ask You know, how come we're the only people that took this for so long? And how come you know there there weren't more revolts? How come they weren't killing their masters? I'm yes, we fucking were.

You know, and I know this because, you know, I have like part of my ancestry is Maroon ancestry and part of my ancestry is is uh is slave ancestry, you know. Um my my stepfather is related uh is a is a distant nephew of Samuel Sharp who led the Christmas revolution of eighteen thirty one. Right. So there's there's a story for all of us. There's a story in all of our backgrounds. where there has been some form of resistance, uprising or all out revolution.

And I think if we stay quiet and listen to our ancestors and try to tune out the day to day dialogue of what it means to be black or what it means to be African, I I think that's that's what we were meant to do is To listen to the voices of our ancestors and let that guide us rather than any of the current paradigms that we're currently living under, which are completely unnatural to us.

I already feel you inviting us to deepen and widen our understanding of of success and successful revolt. And I know i there's a persistent myth that these revolts are uprisings uh were infrequent or inconsequential or perhaps isolated and disconnected from each other. What are your what are your thoughts on that? No, I mean each act of rebellion gives rise to another act of rebellion, right? There's no such thing as an inconsequential rebellion. Like e everything everything is it's like

I'm not sure how much you've read about Jamaican slavery or slavery in the Caribbean. I mean I I shouldn't say I I I know the two of you are are super into this shit, just like I am. What what I probably mean is like I'm not sure how much your audience is familiar with uh the history of of uprisings in the Caribbean, etcetera.

But they all build on one another. You know, in Jamaica there were there were not one but two Maroon Wars. And you know, an example of this is like in this in the second Maroon War. Maroons were rounded up and shipped off to what was then, you know, an English colony, but what is is today the Canadian Maritime. And they fucking hated it there, but they could only stay in Jamaica on pain of death. So they were they were given lands to work and to live on.

Uh, they had contacts with indigenous peoples in Canada and developed relationships with them and so forth. But they didn't like the Canadian winter and frankly I can't fucking blame'em. Uh so sorry, I'm not sure if Malays wearing your podcast, but The following the following year they uh en masse moved to Sierra Leone and were used to put down uprisings by uh people who had or black people who had colonized essentially Sierra Leone.

Uh people who who who who took up the offer to go and colonize Sierra Leone as like a r a returner colony.

And it's just it's interesting to me how that all works out. How, you know, people who were who were in conflict with the British and in many cases helped them put down slave rebellions in Jamaica end up getting moved to what is now Halifax and then are moved from Halifax to Sierra Leone and the people who are in Sierra Leone in the first place are the descendants of enslaved people who took up an offer to have a piece of land carved out for themselves.

And they have their own uprisings put down. by those same marines that were helping put down uprisings in Jamaica. It's just interesting how those dynamics all work out. And it's nothing to be ashamed of. I mean, there's this idea, this perception that Africans sold other Africans into slavery. Well, would people back then refer to themselves as Africans? No. They referred to themselves by their ethnicity.

We we call it tribe, but I I don't like to use that word because frankly like it implies you know, if you're if you're of the Oyo tribe or you're of the Fonte tribe then I it's as valid as me saying that you're of like the you know, the the the Anglo tribe or The Frankish tribe or whatever. It's not it's not a tribe, it's an ethnicity, it's a nation. So th th this idea that Africans sold other Africans into slavery is a canard that minimizes the fact that the Maafah, what we know is the

the triangular trade in child slavery, that was a form of slavery that had never been instituted before. Not it just did not exist in history. And when we flatten rival nations, into Africans. I mean these are those are there are nations that were aligned with the French, aligned with the Dutch, aligned with the British, et cetera. They had their own principal material interests at stake.

You know, if you're aligned with the Portuguese, you're probably not going to have any meaningful ties to other nations adjoining you or adjacent to you that have a relationship with the French. or the Dutch. So you're you're at you're at war with these nations already. You ally with powerful European nations to conquer the nations that you're at war with.

But then everything gets reduced to Africans selling Africans into slavery. You know, we we could say that, you know, the Seven Years War was Europeans killing Europeans. Is it true? I mean, yeah. Are there material conflicts at stake that that description flattens out? Also yes. So I find it a lot I I find it really disheartening that a lot of people can't even name what those conflicts were in the first place.

But that's the nature of white supremacy is to just erase our entire history and replace it with their own. Um so yeah, that's that's probably the most frustrating aspect for me.

it makes me think a lot about Walter Rodney's History of the Upper Guinea Coast. Um, anyone who knows me knows I've been talking about this book a lot the past few year, but it just gives such a detailed view into one specific region of the continent and it kind of breaks apart this African slang Africans narrative to show the context, the history, the relationship um with, you know, the c the colonizers with France and Britain and Portugal, but also

how the class stratification within Africa already, you know, between sort of nobility and non nobility, all of these things are taking place. And so it's so layered and complex. And I think that when people attempt to flatten it to these very easy gotcha statements like Africans sowing other Africans into slavery. You know, it it does such a disservice to the history. Yeah.

You know, another thing about when we talk about the history of enslavement that kind of gets brushed under the rug unless you're us on the call maybe, but uh is that it was um it was profitable. It was actually the built you know, slavery was the capital that built capitalism essentially.

And so I'm curious with that in mind if we look at the other side of that coin, you know, when we look at the rebellions, would you say that they had a major impact on the function, profitability, or even sustainability of the colonial system itself or of the, you know, the system of slavery. it's not profitable to have your plantation burned down. You know? There there are there are interests at stake.

Uh and there were various times where, you know, colonial powers would accuse other colonial powers of barbarism and the way that they treated their slaves. You know, Spain was often accused of you know being incredibly brutal by Britain, which also was incredibly brutal to its slave. Slaves in Saint Domingue, what is what is today Haiti, went through some of the most like unspeakable cruelties that I I I could imagine have happened in human history.

And you know, the economic incentive to simply bring slaves into the island, work them to death, and then import more, you know, keeps the keeps the value of the trade up, but also in a sense

brings down the the value of labor and the ability to export goods in other islands. So the profitability of Saint Domain brings down the profitability of Barbados and Jamaica, etc. Because if you're if your if your export is sugar and you know France is just like making bonanza money and you know has is able to just chug out exports at a rate that no other island is able to keep up with and that's because of their their labor regimen, which is essentially it's a use slaves like batteries.

then yeah, it it does and it does engender a sort of conflict and and this really hypocritical view of human rights as it were, uh saying that, you know, we're less barbaric than they are and that's why they're that's why they're more profitable. And it also speaks to uh the hypocrisy of many abolitionists. who at a s a after a fashion were for the most part upper class, like very well heeled aristocrats who were, you know, in in many ways upset at the upjumped plantation owners.

who uh you know, many of whom uh were either nouveau riche or were people that came from came from people that were were not considered to be in their same class strata. You know, these these were outsiders who kind of wormed their way into the House of Lords and wormed their way into the aristocracy just o aristocracy just off the uh profitability of their plantation.

So I I I guess it's also in a sense beneficial for people whose class status is threatened when a slave uprising happens, because if your wealth doesn't so much depend on the profitability of slavery, then your status within that group is less threatened.

And I want to ask, because you've already sort of touched on it a little bit earlier and made references to your own lineage being Of the Baptist uprising, also known as the Christmas uprising or the Christmas rebellion. And your research deals with this as well. And for those who don't know, as referenced, the Baptist uprising took place in Jamaica and began in Uh eighteen thirty one.

I'm wondering if you could give us a summary for people who might be completely unfamiliar with this history and maybe we can dive a little bit deeper after that. Oh boy. Well one of the big problems with um the idea of Is that everyone believes in the Amazing Grace story that, you know, British abolitionists moved by their religious principles, We're able to effect a uh like a a sort of a form of generosity, like a I don't want to say like patronization or anything like that, but it's like

The arguments of William Wilberforce were just so powerful and so trenchant that it caused their hearts of stone to soften and then they s they freed the slaves of their own accord. There's a reason why uh, you know, the the the Baptist Rebellion or the Christmas Rebellion. I I I'm more often referred to it as a Christmas rebellion because many of those who took part in the uprising were Muslim as well. Uh, you know, and and

Uh many of the people who were under the tutelage of the Moravian church were originally Muslims. So I I don't wanna, you know, erase their their culture and their religion. But um there's a reason why that rebellion takes place and then very shortly thereafter, you know, you have uh total abolition across the colonies. And at this point, you know, slavery had become unprofitable. It was it was a venture that was not sustainable at scale. It's a matter of terraforming land.

to your needs and replacing labor that was lost due to plague and also wanton slaughter as happened to the uh the tainos and arawax and caribbean. Um establishing plantations estates and so on is one thing, maintaining them is quite another. And you not only have the rise of the uh the planter class that challenges the you know the uh noble aristocracy. What you also have is

If you read um many books on linguistics uh in the colonies at the time, uh there was also like a culture shift. There was a change. You know, the the Jamaican dialect, what we know as Pato today, was offensive to the ears of British Aerosoc. And Because many of the um the planters were absentee landlords, they didn't spend a lot of their time in Jamaica. They spent much of their time in England, but they were affected and shaped by their experiences

in the Caribbean. So they come back with a different language and a different outlook and so forth. their interests aren't necessarily the interests of the crown, prime minister, et cetera. So there's that I mean there's there's books I've read where, you know, like uh noble people go to visit, you know, who who not are not planters themselves, but they go to visit planters in Jamaica and they're just they're absolutely offended by the language.

But what this this uh revolution has to do with the later abolition is that this establishment, this uh this this industry was beginning to fall apart at the seams. It was no longer economically viable.

to maintain the slave trade. One thing that it does also is that it devalues white labor. So there are people who moved to the colonies in order to find a new life, in order to be able to become essentially wage slaves, that aren't able to do so because all of the available labor is taken up by slaves themselves. And they find that their class interests align much more with the slaves than with the with the plantational.

So because you have labor stagnancy, uh, you have, you know, great deals of unemployment at home, you have people that are less willing to make the trip all the way across the Atlantic to stake out, you know, stake out their uh their their territory and you know, in engage in the act of homesteading and so forth, people just don't want to do that'cause where are you going to be able to find work? So there was a a level of stagnancy that was being reached.

that essentially if you it's like uh, you know, clearing the underbrush to allow the forest to survive. Uh, you stave off essentially a class war by getting rid of the institution of slavery. And in the in the the Christmas rebellion, there are a multitude of slaves all across the island. I mean, this is like a nationwide revolt.

But there are also white people, whether they were laborers, uh w one of the reasons they call it the Baptist Rebellion is because it was blamed on the Baptists for not like Bash Baptist missionaries for not only teaching enslaved people to read. And Samuel Sharp was one of those enslaved who had the benefit of being able to read. One of the reasons actually he's he's able to make this call across the island to rise up in revolt is that he's heard and he's read these reports that

Abolition soon come. You know, he it is sort of like a game of broken telephone, but he had the idea that slavery was going to be abolished and that Britain broke its promise. Uh and that was the final shaw for many people who believed that there was going to be a natural end.

to slavery and not one that was gonna come at at the end of a bayonet. Uh so that that's essentially what what kicks off uh the revolution. And granted it is put down relatively quickly. It only lasts over a couple of weeks, but it has such I mean The entire island was up in up in smoke. And it it had such a deleterious effect not only on the material circumstance of planters, but on the psyche. They had never seen anything like this happen before.

after the uh the Haitian Revolution, the biggest fear in the minds of slave owners all across the Caribbean and the and in the Americas as well, is that we could be next. You know, uh slaves that uh took part in the Haitian Revolution weren't generally leaving Haiti, but uh slaves who were um escaping the uh the violence and bloodshed, you know, if they were

seen as being uh on the side of the uh the planters or or the um the girl blanc. You know, if they were if they were on the side of the bourgeoisie that wanted to keep the institution of slavery together, I mean, they had to flee. But Nobody else wanted to take them because if you take in if you take in a refugee Haitian slave, I mean they may get some ideas into the heads of your own enslaved people.

So because because the British had never seen anything like this happen before, there there's a like an open and shut case for finally abolishing the institution. And it it really bothers me that the story we hear About how it is that Britain abolished slavery is a moral one. And it wasn't that. It was it was a material one. You know, they had this shit scared out of them by the Christmas rebellion. That's what finally leads to abolition.

The story of William Mullerforce is you know, it's the story of the uh the abolition of slave importation. It's not the story of the complete abolition of slavery. And in many ways the abolition of slavery was made as an argument for other forms of colonial domination in many locations too. So there's, you know, so many, I guess, dubious, you know, strains of thought when you look through I mean, you can read some literature written by the abolit British abolitionists.

And it is like the most racist colonial So yeah, they're not they weren't nice people. You know, people have this idea that abolitionists were, you know, morally upright people that were just trying to do the right thing. No, they they were for the most. I mean, they're like uh, I don't know, like in today, they were they would be like like the the Portland rich kids you find hanging out at coffee shops.

talking theory. They weren't, you know, they weren't workers with dirt under their fingernails. And they were trying to save off a threat by the Nouveau Reich. They were not, by any means, acting in the interest of black people or of the African Your hanging your heart where your end reaching for you It is true and it must be acknowledged. that the national independence movement of the Third World and of Africa and the Caribbean in particular has come almost to its conclusion.

We see only the very last phases of that movement in Southern Africa today. And we ought to recognise the historical wit of that movement. It is not to be treated lightly. There was a time not so long ago in our lifetime when the continent of Africa and the area of the Caribbean was colonised, a specific political conjuncture. and one which many people expected to last at least until the end of this century, if not until the end of the next.

There was a period not so long ago, at the end of the Second World War, when it was not considered. even sane to conceptualise a free Africa or a free Caribbean. When Winston Churchill said that there would be no dissolution of the British Empire except over his dead body, he was making a statement on behalf of a ruling class.

He was expressing a perception that they did not see freedom even in the limited sense of political independence for African peoples at home in Africa and in the Caribbean. And they had to be a countervision to the vision of the ruling class, a countervision which was perhaps best and most ably represented in the activity and the thought of Kwame and Kruma. And out of that vision and out of the activity of African peoples

They swept away the whole superstructure of colonial rule. Let us not for a moment underestimate the revolutionary significance. The way in which the map of the world was transformed by the initiative having been seized by African people, by the people of the Caribbean.

Anwar Abuwa, he talks about a specific individual. African masses. uh left to their own devices would just squander the great resources of their land, which is why slavery must be ended and direct colonial rule must be you know, so this is this is it's the same thing in the American being made. So I just you know, thank you for putting it into that context. Oh yeah, no worries. I mean you spoke about you mentioned briefly Sandra Sharp as being one of the leaders of this rebellion.

With him in mind, as well as just sort of events of the rebellion in general, I'm wondering what do you think is the most important aspect or lesson to be learned from this uprising? We we love to say things like you know, not all skin folk are kinfolk and we talk about like crabs in a bucket and and all sorts of ways to separate ourselves from the masses of black people that we think ought to be we ought to be suspicious about. And

The story of the the the Christmas rebellion is it's a story of of people coming together under the you know under the cause of liberation. You know, Samuel Sharp was one man. He didn't have the ability to reach Across the islands. Not everyone who took part in the rebellion had even heard his preaching.

But there was a collective need to emancipate themselves that they answered to. And, you know, unfortunately enough, the Maroons helped put down that rebellion as well. But It it's it's one thing to look at the Maroons putting down the rebellion and saying that they were they were traitors.

It's another thing to look at the Maroons as being a group of self interested people. They're they aren't the same group of people that were enslaved by the British. The Maroons were enslaved originally by the Spanish. And they were of different ethnicities. Many times they spoke different languages. They they were not the same as enslaved people who were later brought in, you know, a people, you know, a shanti and so on.

There's there's a there's a conflict of interests there. But given that the diaspora no longer has these sort of materially different interests Liberation is a universal need. The interest differences come in where class comes into play, not necessarily ethnicity, not language, not culture, any of that. You know, we we can look at anywhere in the diaspora and Kwame Tsu Re was very fond of pointing this out.

is that after revolution is won, then the gains are handed back by reactionary pigs to the same people that we're fighting for liberation from in the first place. This is one of those reasons that we have to be I don't want to say like, you know, suspicious or cautious of of people who put themselves forward as as black leaders and speaking with the interests of the black quote unquote community at heart.

But we also have to pay attention to the what their class interests are. I can't have a celebrity speak for me or for other black people. I can't have a celebrity talk about what my interests are as a black person. They have they have their own interests at heart. Some might say something like the Christmas uprising. It's very specific political context, very specific material conditions.

that there's not really sort of a workable way to think about lessons that we can draw for our context now. So what would you say? Like what's the importance of sort of understanding these dynamics?

Right now. Yeah, it's it's trusting your people and and you know, try to build as broad a coalition across y class lines as possible. Because I don't wanna bring Twitter or dialogue into this, but it's it's not just Twitter, it's everywhere. This diaspora war stuff, right? This idea that like Nigerians and Eidos people and that is American descendants of slaves.

black people from the UK and um con the Africans on the continent and Caribbean. Like we all have these different interests and we you know, we think that we're better than the others and this, that, and the third. It's like Absolute bullshit. You know, like talking with we all we all have different circumstances and we've all hurt each other in in in various ways, but You know, what somebody said to you in the third grade.

They're not here with you now, right? So just relax and get over it. I think one of the big lessons to take from the the the Christmas rebellion is that you've gotta trust that we all have many of the same goals in mind, at least for ourselves. And that's liberation.

So Samuel Sharp didn't have the ability. Like there was no social media back then. There wasn't even telephone or anything back then for for mass communication among enslaved people. There was simply word of mouth. And Sharp wasn't able to reach everybody, it was simple word of mouth, from one enslaved person to the next to the next.

This is what's gonna happen. And it was a level of uprising that the British had never before experienced. And that's what solidarity does is it it scares the oppressor. And then they scramble immediately to protect their interests, even if it means

you know, amputating a limb of their I guess like the the the colonial hydra. So one of the problems that I have is that we tend to draw lines across l language, ethnicity, borders, and not class. There's not really much that I'm gonna have in common with a black celebrity, an entertainer, a singer, an athlete, an actor, actress, they can contribute to the cause of liberation. I just don't think that they should be leading it. And we shouldn't be looking towards them as leaders either.

I don't think that anybody who's like the head of an NGO should be considered a leader. I think that all of this has to come from a structured approach to liberation. And you know, I can't talk about what that looks like. I can only look to the past and and talk about what works and what hasn't worked. But if I'm going to apply any of the lessons from the past to you today, it's that we need to be

very careful to look to people that have their own class interests at heart as people that have anything worthwhile, valid, or insightful to say about our current condition. I mean, not to pick on Dave Chappelle. You know, he I think he's he's he he he definitely has enough people uh dogging on him right now and and he for the right reasons. But one thing that he said that's always stuck with me

Is when he talks about uh, you know, Donald Trump being good for somebody like him. You know, he kept his taxes low. And he was joking about it. He obviously doesn't support Donald Trump. But he was speaking to what his class interests are and he was saying the quiet part out loud. You had you had people that were willing to throw their lot in with a with a Trump type character because their class interests are at play.

So I do believe in the the masses of of African descended people. And I I do believe that we have a conception of what liberation looks like. I think what's required is for not not more knowledge, not more book reading, but greater organization and just trusting in one another. You know what I mean? I think I think like we're so we're so alienated and like dispersed and have such a hard time understanding each other. And then also dividing each other down

artificial lines, you know. And I think in a s in some ways, like standpoint epistemology has uh been like watered down and turned into a way for us to see that we have nothing in common one another, even though we are within the same like economic class, we're living in the same neighborhoods and all that stuff. But we just use it to like divide one an o ourselves from one another because we're not all on the same Wi Fi signal. But

You know, it's not it's not me that's saying this. I mean there's the Panthers have said the same thing. Like you don't divide your army. Like you you can't win a revolution with a divided army. Absolutely. And that's a really that's a really great quote. I'm gonna make sure I pull that one out and uh use it in the description here. Um and you know you s you said divide ourselves among um I think you said like imaginary lines or something like that, but in reality they're colonial lines.

you know, many of the categories that that we so carelessly and so quickly rush ourselves into in these isolated silos, the categories were established decades, usually centuries ago for us. And I think that's a a way of thinking about it that I mean, you mentioned standpoint epistemology. I I don't think certain schools of thoughts are able to really contend with what that means and without this sort of colonial analysis to the categories of identity that we have.

Um, but that's a whole nother conversation. I don't wanna get too off topic. No, I I'm not gonna say that any any, you know, school of philosophy or any form of analysis isn't valid. I think we have to accept that they have their benefits and they have their shortcomings. You know, there's no perfect analysis or perfect lens through which you can look at anything.

And if there was, I mean, we would have solved all the world's problems right now. I think what happens is people get people first of all like glom onto a particular form of analysis and say, Well this is this is the one that's that's works for me, so it should work for everyone.

And then the second is a lot of people will get the gist of what those philosophies mean and not do the actual reading. Uh so you'll see names get thrown out uh as to who it is that you should read, but can they tell you what those people said. Uh so unfortunately, and this is why I say it's been watered down, is that people just assume

For example, that like intersectionality is like Pokemon cards or something like that, right? Like you're you're you're stacking up various at or like it like Exodia pieces, you know, from Yu-Gi-Oh, where like if you have the perfect combination of marginalized identities then people should be able to listen to you or you are the most marginalized. I'm not sure exactly what that wins you or whatever, but You know, that's just never the way that it was intended to be used.

The the the downside of that is that because we understand the value of listening to people with marginalized identities and how that can fill in. for where the research and the empiricism is lacking. I think what a lot of people have done, too many people, I'm not gonna say everybody does this, but I think too many people, especially that exists inside the media class, I've kind of parleyed that to their advantage to say, Well, you should listen to me because I

I bring the perspective that you're lacking in your organization, I bring the perspective that you're lacking in your editorial page, et cetera. And then they end up getting listened to not like somebody who has a perspective or an opinion, but somebody who is by their nature of their being in the body that they're in, just unassailably correct on all matters. And unfortunately th like I said, there is no there is no analysis that accounts for all circumstances.

I really I really hope that we're able to move past that quickly because I I just I I hate I hate the social media wars. I hate the wars in print. I hate I hate the wars in in column spaces. I think that if we actually have any interest in liberation, we can bring all of these analyses to bear and synthesize them into something that looks like black liberation.

And not to switch gears too you know, make too hard of a a left turn here. I did only have a few more questions for you. I know it's kinda late at the time of our recording and but I did want to ask a few questions just to sort of put the Caribbean

and these uprisings in the larger context of sort of African underdevelopment. You know, like we were just talking about being isolated, a lot of people view what happens in the Caribbean as isolated events um with no sort of bearing on what happened to the continent, um, no connections and not as in the same process of decolonization and uprising that was taking place elsewhere.

So I'm just curious, you know, did these uprisings in Jamaica or elsewhere, in your opinion, have an impact on European development and or African development? Absolutely. I mean the British army was decimated by the Haitian Revolu they they attempted to invade Haiti.

So after the the Haitians defeated France, um and were or I shouldn't say as the Haitians were defeating France, it's probably a more accurate way to put it, and there were vast swaths of territory on Saint Domingue that had been liberated, the uh the British attempted to invade Saint Domingue and recapture it and reinstitute slavery.

And due to a combination of strategic ineffectiveness, part of it being that they essentially divided up their army, taking resources away from what was necessary to win a war that they are having with other Europeans, um, and also hiring mercenaries to go on to Saint Domingue, mercenaries that had never been before exposed to tropical diseases. They lost s they lost tens of thousands of of soldiers and mercenaries. I believe it was something to the extent of like close to sixty thousand

men that died, that they jeopardized their own national security. So does does an uprising in the Caribbean have an effect on fortunes in Europe? Yes, absolutely. the war of Jenkins ear can be traced directly to Caribbean revolutions. I mean, this is like you you would think that it's one of one and

Unfortunately, a lot of what happens on the African continent and what happens in the Caribbean and South America end up getting excised from European lore. So we're essentially learning about our own histories through them. also like a game of broken telephone. But it has impact on on the con on the African continent as well. And like I said, you know, the the Marons that were um putting down rebellions in Sierra Leone. But then there's also a matter of um policy changes.

A a royal letter was sent from the British Crown and didn't make it into the hands of the governor of Jamaica because of the Haston Revolution. Because the planters in Jamaica were were essentially trying to protect their own interests. So directives were were deliberately ignored. He also had French

former planters or the plantocracy in Saint Domingue that were willing to accept fealty to the British crown if it meant that they could get their their slaves and their land back. So there are like a multitude of wheels that are turning here. And none of them are moving independently. You know, this is war within a war within a war. And to try and look at any of them in isolation I think is It's kinda foolish. You can't look at what's happening in America.

uh separate from what's happening in Barbados, separate from what's happening in Jamaica. You know, the first set of slave codes that existed were instituted in Barbados and the the concept of slavery carried down through matrilineal lines originated in Barbados as well. You know, many of the other Cod Nois that existed in Saint Domingue were exported to the Louisiana territory. And the Haitian Revolution having cost France its most valuable asset in the Atlantic.

causes France to cut its losses and offer the Louisiana purchase to the United States. And if you don't have the Louisiana Purchase, you don't have Manifest Destiny. If you don't have Manifest Destiny, you don't have United States of America. So welcome, white people. But you can't look at any of these you can't look at any of these matters in isolation. Like they all they all have a tremendous impact on one another. Definitely.

put some context to that question because uh I had worked with a white woman at a leftist media outlet that will not be named. But she when when I was asked to tell the story of sort of how you're better with Africa the idea, the mere idea of including the Caribbean in that telling was just just a distraught, confused I mean, she just didn't understand why I would want to do that and why anyone would want to do that and she saw them as

completely distinct, you know, the whole history, five hundred year history of how Europe and developed Africa and the Caribbean and what happened in the Caribbean as it relates to colonialism and slavery. And so, you know, I just wanted to put a little context.

to that. Oh no, I got that. And that that happens all the time when I have conversations with people, you know, that people will will ask questions like, Well, why is that relevant to me? And it's like it's it's relevant because without the history of those uprisings You wouldn't have your own history.

You know, like i if if you live in Atlantic Canada, you know, much of your own history is heavily impacted by is heavily impacted by uh free black people that are fighting on behalf of the British during the Revolutionary War and were also fighting Uh during the Maroon War.

And we're also fighting to put down rebellions in the Caribbean by Maroons. I mean, this is not hard to figure out, but again, you know, part of part of white supremacy and part of imperialism is is making us believe that their history is ours and we have no we have no history. Yeah, I I kinda wanna touch on uh some of this getting black folks not to sort of take for granted these boundaries of nation state, these diaspora wars as

some of us are familiar with as you've sort of termed them. Um some things that you bring up make me think of my fave Clyde Woods' work on the French that escaped the rebellion in Haiti and brought their personal slaves with them to Louisiana and sort of the impact that uh that small group of people had on how other black folks uh living in Louisiana were thinking about resistance and thinking about

You know, staying alive and building something else. And Dev just mentioned Walter Rodney's how Europe underdeveloped Africa. And so I just wanna think through like I know we have uh some of us might have a harder time sort of thinking about or conceptualizing the Caribbean as an extension of Africa or other parts of the diaspora as an extension of Africa.

Beyond, I don't know, just pointing people in the direction of these histories and telling them to read it, like what what conditions are do we need to actually develop this consciousness? Um, how do we talk about how do we explain this lack of consciousness? Please say, if I had the answer to that question, I don't I don't have the winter soldier activation code for class in racial school consciousness, unfortunately, you know I

I I I I wish I did. You know, we would be like through this period a lot better, but I don't really know. Although I will say like you people gotta give folks a lot more credit than than they do.'Cause I think like We kind of assume that we have to like

hate like the the ignorant negroes. There's there's like a uh like almost like a zoological type of view that people who are in academia or are studying uh or exist in the media and political class have this idea that like they have to like like uh like some benevolent father among like orphan children, like open their hands and let them feed from our palms. Doesn't work that way.

Like go into communities and find out what needs to be done and help them do that. Like that's that's how you spread class consciousness. It's through your actions, not by telling people to read a book. Although I will tell people to read books, but that's

folks like us who are like you know who are actually like trying to help build something, right? If you're gonna go into a community and and offer your support and assistance, you have to know what you're talking about, right? And you also have to know the histories and so on. And you can that's something that you can impart onto people through your personal relationship with them.

But I I think folks really just gotta give a lot more credit than they have been because I hear black people on academia and politics and media talking to and about other black people that they think of as being this poor huddled mass in like I said, whatever frankly zoological terms. Folks don't folks know what their own circumstances are. They know what life is like. They don't need you to come in and theorize for them.

But as to the the the question of fast and racial consciousness, I mean, you just you gotta talk things through with folks and you have to build personal relationships with them. I I don't want to give like some vague. ideas about organizing and that sort of thing. But Yeah, that's why I work with both the Communist Party of Canada and Black Alliance for Peace is because I'm trying to meet folks where they're at and f find out what's important to them. Like I ha you know, I haven't

the circumstances that I grew up in are not the circumstances that I'm in now. And I'm not gonna fool myself and pretend like I'm still dealing with the same shit. I'm not. There's a lot of people way younger than I am that are dealing with harder things than I ever had to in life. So I need to figure out what it is that's important to them and help them, you know?

Yeah, definitely. And I I do wanna throw my own answer in the ring and I think that uh part of it too and the Black Panthers were really great at this is popular education. And we have so many examples um from Brazil. to Cuba of popular education. Even Walter Rodney's groundings the the all time namesake of the show. Even that is an example of, you know, there are so many ways to educate just through making relationships and meeting people where they're at. And like Q said, not assuming

people don't know or don't want to know or can't learn it. So, you know, I think that's a really good place to end right there. I won't hold you much longer, Q. You've been an amazing uh guest and I thank you for your time. I'm curious if you want to tell the people or anything you want to shout out, anything you're working on, any last questions, comments, concerns, the floor is all yours.

Appreciate it. Uh so uh you can find me in a multitude of places. Uh so I write with McClain's magazine, which is a national publication in Canada. You can find my columns there. I also occasionally write with the Globe and Mail and I do freelance work elsewhere. Um my book on killing a revolution should be on store shelves in late February. And I do a podcast with Glenn Greenwald called Unredacted.

I know that always surprises a lot of people that I do a podcast with Glenn Greenwald, but we actually have get to the bottom of matters on where it comes to geopolitics, state surveillance, privacy, et cetera. Uh and I also work with a uh team of fantastic and well principled Marxists on theculture dot TV. Check me out on any of those Okay. This is such a rich conversation. I really appreciate that. Alright, well this has been another episode. Exciting stuff but Podcast.

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