#272 | Race Traitors: The Return Of John Brown In The Uprisings Of 2020 w/ Shemon & Arturo
Intro: 7:20
In this episode, I speak with political activists and commentators Shemon and Arturo, authors of several articles published at Ill Will Editions, including ‘Theses on the George Floyd Rebellion,’ ‘The Rise of Black Counter-Insurgency,’ and ‘The Return of John Brown: White Race-Traitors in the 2020 Uprising.’
Since late May of this year, cities across the United States have been rocked by numerous riots and demonstrations in response to the highly publicized police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. What makes this national movement unique, particularly in comparison to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, is not only the scope of these uprisings, but also the mass participation of the white proletariat. While still remaining a BIPOC-led movement, countless white people have engaged in militant anti-racism direct action in the streets, openly breaking with the social and institutional construct of whiteness that “continues to be the glue that holds bourgeois society together in the U.S.” Shemon and Arturo examine the conditions that have led to this historic moment of unrest in this country, and draw on several historical comparisons of class solidarity that have extended across racial lines. We also address the “Black counter-insurgency” that has emerged in the weeks and months since the initial uprisings in May, as addressed in Shemon’s article ‘The Rise of Black Counter-Insurgency.’
To quote from ‘The Return of John Brown: White Race-Traitors in the 2020 Uprising.’:
The question that has haunted the Black liberation movement is that of the white proletariat. Will it join the revolutionary struggle? Or will it defend class society? In Portland, white militants are fighting the state, on a local and federal level. Black militants are taking notice, watching, seeing if these whites are serious. The historic question for revolution in the US has always been: will white proletarians fight alongside Black proletarians? Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Kenosha are answering that question in the affirmative.
Majority white cities have witnessed the most militant rebellions of this cycle so far. How do we explain this? The answer is that these cities have the weakest Black middle classes, weakest Black NGOs, and the weakest Black Democratic Party institutions relative to other cities like NYC, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, or Baltimore. In Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, and Kenosha, the Black counter-insurgency has been sufficiently weak enough that these cities have produced the highpoints of the movement. (https://bit.ly/36TdPKK)
Episode Notes:
- Read Shemon and Arturo’s articles ‘Theses on the George Floyd Rebellion,’ ‘The Rise of Black Counter-Insurgency,’ and ‘The Return of John Brown: White Race-Traitors in the 2020 Uprising’: at Ill Will Editions: https://bit.ly/30TPz7l / https://bit.ly/34H49QM / https://bit.ly/36TdPKK
- The songs featured in this episode are “Theykome&Go” and “Do You” by Knxwledge from the album 1988: https://youtu.be/rRGPJhlN3Fc / https://youtu.be/T6V_bLUE2Vw
