This is the slightly cleaned-up audio of our most recent conversation with Fred Moten. This was recorded on October 25th. Given the evolution of this struggle and the increasingly genocidal character as well as the ongoing resistance, our comments if we were to hold this discussion today on November 11th would undoubtedly be different. Nonetheless I think a lot of what we cover remains important and we wanted to try to create an audio version of this conversation which held true to the character...
Nov 11, 2023•1 hr 35 min•Season 1Ep. 244
This is a slightly edited audio version of one of the MAKC livestreams we’ve hosted on our new Youtube channel . We will continue to polish the audio versions of those livestreams and release them as episodes here as well. Due to the amount of labor that goes into making them viable audio podcast episodes there will be a little bit of a delay on that. In the meantime I of course encourage folks to check them out on our YouTube channel and we will play with ways to get audio versions, perhaps eve...
Nov 03, 2023•2 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 243
This is the slightly edited audio from a livestream conversation we had with Max Ajl on the morning of October 17th. This conversation was held on our new YouTube channel and we’ll include a link to that in the show notes. We encourage folks to head over there to subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications for all episodes so that you don’t miss any of our livestreams. We held three livestreams this past week the one you’re about to hear, one with Morgan Artyukhina , and a third one with ...
Oct 22, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 242
This is a special announcement. Given the critical nature of the Palestinian Liberation struggle in this moment. We have made some quick shifts. As we announced on patreon this past weekend we have launched a YouTube channel where we will hold multiple weekly livestreams. Those conversations will eventually be available through the podcast stream as well, but for now you can find them at YouTube.com/@MAKCapitalism . Make sure to check our page out there, subscribe to our channel, which you can d...
Oct 18, 2023•5 min•Season 1Ep. 241
Our guests for this discussion are Frances Hasso , a brilliant scholar and friend of the show, and author of Buried in the Red Dirt: Race, Reproduction and Death in Modern Palestine , and our friend Sina Rahmani, host of The East Is A Podcast . No show notes today. Listen to the conversation or don't. And if you want to be on the right side of history, take action in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We recorded this on October 12th, at roughly 9 PM ET (US) Some links provided by a comrade...
Oct 13, 2023•1 hr 52 min•Season 1Ep. 240
In this episode is the conclusion of our 2 part conversation with Max Ajl. Max Ajl is an educator and a researcher and the author of A People’s Green New Deal , which we highly recommend and had a previous discussion of back in 2021. He is also the associate editor of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy . Here we continued our discussion of his piece “ Theories of Political Ecology: Monopoly Capital Against People and the Planet. " In this section of the conversation we talk about China...
Oct 12, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 239
In this episode Max Ajl returns to the podcast. Max Ajl is an educator and a researcher and the author of A People’s Green New Deal , which we highly recommend and had a previous discussion of back in 2021. He is also the associate editor of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy . We caught up with Max back in early August to talk about one of his recent pieces, from Agrarian South . The article is entitled “Theories of Political Ecology: Monopoly Capital Against People and the Planet.” I...
Oct 06, 2023•1 hr 49 min•Season 1Ep. 238
In this conversation Breht from Revolutionary Left Radio join the podcast to talk about the Friedrich Engels’ short piece, " The Principles of Communism ." This piece which is presented in Question and Answer form was a draft that would inform the creation of The Communist Manifesto . This is part of our series of episodes we’ve been doing lately where we talk to friends of the podcast about some of their favorite works, particularly works by authors who are no longer with us. So far we’ve talke...
Sep 27, 2023•1 hr 48 min•Season 1Ep. 237
This is the conclusion of our discussion with César “che” Rodríguez ( part 1 is here ), who works as a faculty member of Race & Resistance Studies at San Francisco State University, is a rank-and-file union member of the California Faculty Association, and organized with Change SSF. Here we get into the actual history of the murder of Oscar Grant, trigger or content warning on that discussion for folks. It’s not needlessly graphic, but it is descriptive of the events as they took place. Then...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Season 1Ep. 236
In this episode we welcome César “che” Rodríguez to the podcast. We had a lengthy conversation about Rodríguez’s piece, “‘Oscar Did Not Die in Vain’ Revelous Citizen Journalism, Righteous/Riotous Work, and the Gains of the Oscar Grant Moment in Oakland, California,” which we will link in the show notes. César “che” Rodríguez works as a faculty member of Race & Resistance Studies at San Francisco State Univeristy, is a rank-and-file union member of the California Faculty Association, and orga...
Sep 22, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 235
In this conversation we talk to Santi Elijah Holley about his recently published book An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created . A history of the political family that included Tupac, Assata, Afeni, Dr. Mutulu, Salahdeen, Lumumba, Zayd and many others. What does it mean to take the name Shakur? What were some of the key relationships and sites of politicization for these folks? Holley’s book gets into many of these questions, and examines the radical organizing and political a...
Sep 15, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 234
Content Notice: This episode contains discussions of sexual violence & rape This is the conclusion of our discussion on Orisanmi Burton’s forthcoming book Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt . This discussion was recorded on the same day as the previously released episode , so you may catch references back to that conversation or to others we’ve had with Burton over the last couple of years. We’ll link those in the show notes. Here we largely mov...
Sep 13, 2023•1 hr 39 min•Season 1Ep. 233
This is a conversation about Andaiye who was born 81 years ago today on September 11th 1942. For this discussion we speak with Alissa Trotz, who like Andaiye was born in Guyana. Alissa teaches in Women and Gender Studies and Caribbean Studies at the University of Toronto. For the last 15 years she has edited In the Diaspora , a weekly newspaper column in a Guyanese daily newspaper, the Stabroek News. Alissa has worked with Red Thread, the women’s organization co-founded by Andaiye, for over two ...
Sep 11, 2023•2 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 232
Orisanmi Burton returns to the podcast to discuss his forthcoming book Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt . We recorded this episode on August 21st the anniversary of the assassination of George Jackson, and we release it on September 9th, the 52nd anniversary of the Attica Rebellion. We spoke with Dr. Burton for over three hours and will release the conversation in segments. In this episode we talk about Dr. Burton’s methodology and why this book i...
Sep 09, 2023•2 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 231
In this discussion we talk to CalvinJohn Smiley about his book Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition , which examines how individuals returning to society navigate and negotiate this process with diminished legal rights and amplified social stigmas. CalvinJohn Smiley, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department of Hunter College-City University of New York. He also has worked to abolish the death penalty, and currently volunteers at Rikers Island and Horizon Juveni...
Sep 04, 2023•2 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 230
[This episode was conducted bilingually in French & English and there is also a French version of the episode here ] In this episode we speak with Inemesit Richardson and Wendlassida Simporé of the Thomas Sankara Center for African Liberation and Unity in Burkina Faso. They are also both members of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party. The Thomas Sankara Center for African Liberation and Unity is a Pan-African library and political education center in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The T...
Aug 31, 2023•59 min•Season 1Ep. 229
[French version of MAKC, the English version of this episode is available here ] Dans cet épisode, nous parlons à Inemesit Richardson et Wendlassida Simporé du Centre Thomas Sankara pour la libération et l’unité africaine. Elles sont les deux des membres du Parti Révolutionnaire de Tous Les Peuples Africains. Le Centre Thomas Sankara pour la libération et l’unité africaine est une bibliothèque panafricaine et un centre de l’éducation politique à Ouagadougou au Burkina Faso. Le centre est une bib...
Aug 31, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 228
In this episode we interview Cappy, an organizer from UprisingSupport.org . In response to massive state repression during the George Floyd rebellions, Uprising Support is a website that was founded by a small group of folks who have a background in doing anti-repression organizing and education. Three years after the George Floyd uprising many people are locked up behind the walls for taking bold action amid the largest mass protests of many of our lifetimes. We really encourage everyone to lis...
Aug 30, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 227
In this episode we talk about a forthcoming graphic novel adaptation of C.L.R. James’ play Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History . The text of this graphic novel is a play by C.L.R. James that opened in London in 1936 with Paul Robeson in the title role. For the first time, black actors appeared on the British stage in a work by a black playwright. In this conversation we talk to Sakina Karimjee and Nic Watts who adapted James’ play into graphic novel for...
Aug 21, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 226
In this episode we interview Anthony Dest. Anthony Dest is assistant professor of anthropology at Lehman College and currently a faculty fellow at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics. He is also a member of the Colombia Freedom Collective. We talk with Anthony about three of his essays about political economy, organizing and resistance in Colombia. This conversation primarily focuses on the organization of Black Colombians in formations like the Black Communities Process (PCN), as well as...
Aug 18, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 225
In this conversation Josh interviews Zachary Levenson and Marcel Paret discussing their article on “The South African tradition of racial capitalism,” which serves as the introduction to a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies on the same subject. Zachary Levenson is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Florida International University in the United States and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. He is the author of Delivery as Dispossession: Land...
Aug 12, 2023•1 hr 39 min•Season 1Ep. 224
In this conversation we talk to Ivan Stoiljkovic . Ivan is the General Secretary of Katarokwi Union of Tenants , the Kingston Peace Council and a member of the Communist Party of Canada. This conversation is a part of a newer series of conversations where we talk to people about texts that they find politically useful and important. It’s a different approach that moves beyond a typical author talk - which we will continue to do - to engage theory and history with people who are seeking to put th...
Aug 07, 2023•1 hr 41 min•Season 1Ep. 223
In this episode we welcome an organizer who goes by Grandma to talk about the campaign to Stop Camp Grayling . Encompassing roughly 150,000 acres of land, Camp Grayling is already the largest National Guard training facility in the United States. For about a year now there has been a concerted effort to expand it to an even larger area. In this conversation we talk to Grandma about the campaign to fight its expansion, about the environmental impacts of the current facility and the further devast...
Aug 02, 2023•46 min•Season 1Ep. 223
In this episode we discuss the brand new authorized English translation of Domenico Losurdo’s Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend, pre-orders are now being fulfilled, from Iskra Books . Joining us for this conversation are the translators of the text Henry Hakamäki and Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro. Henry Hakamäki is best known as the co-host of the Guerrilla History podcast. And of course among many other things, he is also the co-translator and editor of the book we will be discussing to...
Jul 30, 2023•1 hr 51 min•Season 1Ep. 222
This is the conclusion of our two-part discussion with Dr. Jared A. Ball on the release of the second edition of his book The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power . Part one can be found here . Once again, Jared Ball is the host of imixwhatilike and co-host of Earn Your Liberation and the RemiX Morning Show over on Black Power Media . He works as Professor of Africana and Communication Studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. His decades of journalism, media, writing, and politi...
Jul 20, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 221
In this episode we welcome Dr. Jared A. Ball back to the podcast. Of course we know Jared Ball as a host of imixwhatilike and co-host of Earn Your Liberation and the RemiX Morning Show over on Black Power Media . In addition he is of course Professor of Africana and Communication Studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. His decades of journalism, media, writing, and political work can be found at imixwhatilike.org . He has previously joined us for multiple discussions which we will l...
Jul 17, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 220
In this episode we welcome Thandisizwe Chimurenga and Yusef “Bunchy” Shakur to have a conversation that revolves around Sanyika Shakur’s final book, Stand-Up, Struggle Forward: New Afrikan Revolutionary Writings on Nation, Class and Patriarchy . Thandisizwe Chimurenga is an award-winning Los Angeles-based journalist. Having worked in print and radio/broadcast journalism, she is the author of No Doubt: The Murder(s) of Oscar Grant ; Reparations … Not Yet: A Case for Reparations and Why We Must Wa...
Jul 12, 2023•1 hr 42 min•Season 1Ep. 219
This past May David Chávez, Steven Osuna, Alejandro Villalpando, and Jared Ware (co-host of MAKC) gave a panel presentation at the Abolitions Conference in DC. We wanted to have a conversation to share some of what we talked about, some of our reflections on the conference, discuss some of the possibilities, limitations and contradictions of Abolition within Academic spaces, as well as some of the potential ways that these spaces, jobs within them, or alternatives to them might be useful in adva...
Jul 06, 2023•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 218
In this episode we welcome on multiple activists and organizers involved in the struggle to stop cop city. For this discussion Kamau Franklin from Community Movement Builders, and Micah Herskind return to the podcast, and K from Unity and Struggle, and Matthew Johnson from the Stop Cop City Faith Coalition join them to talk about various facets of the movement to stop cop city current strategic and tactical questions and concerns. They each provide brief introductions during the show itself. We ...
Jun 27, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 217
In this episode we welcome members of the Kenya Organic Intellectuals Network to the podcast. We discuss their most recent book Breaking the Silence on NGOs in Africa edited by Nicholas Mwangi, Lewis Maghanga and the contributors of the Kenya Organic Intellectuals Network. Today we have Gacheke Gachihi, Comrade Maghanga, Sungu Oyoo, and Wanjira Wanjiru each from various formations including the Kenya Organic Intellectuals Network. Primarily the subject of our discussion is their book which follo...
Jun 25, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 216
