I’ve been accepted to the Narco News 2010 School of Authentic Journalism, along with thirty other media-makers from around the world! Narco News relies entirely on support from its readers, so consider donating to offset my travel costs and support this vital alternative media project, and thanks.
As a kind of update to a heavily-trafficked list of decent white rappers I posted a while ago, I want to shout out two new songs directly addressing white (and light skin) privilege and its role in hip-hop culture and society at large. Credit to these guys for taking on a difficult subject and shedding light. There is way too much 50 Cent and Soulja Boy on the radio here in Haiti… Listen: Wale’s “Shades featuring Chrisette Michelle” and Macklemore’s “White Privilege.” (Macklemore is white and from my hometown of Seattle.)
On Sunday leading former members of the Young Lords Party, a militant Puerto Rican community organization active from 1969 to 1971, gathered at the First Spanish Methodist Church in East Harlem to reflect on the impact of the group. The New York Young Lords took over the church the first time in 1969 an attempt to use it as a base for community food and health programs. Months later they occupied it again, this time brandishing weapons, in protest of the hanging of Julio Roldan, a Young Lords member who was found dead in his cell after a police raid.
It’s unfortunate that the Young Lords are not as well known among broader public as the Black Panthers. The group was arguably more progressive for its time. Patriarchy and other oppressions within the Young Lords started to break down quickly when members challenged those hierarchies inherited from society. The Lords had deep roots in and support from the “El Barrio” community.
Which makes the New York Lords’ sudden and swift decline all the more puzzling. Why did the group fall apart after just two years of success? What can radicals learn from the Young Lords?
I cannot find any audio or video from Sunday’s forum online, oddly, to help answer those questions. You can hear Democracy Now co-host and Lords co-founder Juan Gonzalez speak on his experience in this interview.
I attempted to answer the question posed above myself last year in a paper for a ‘Radical Social Movements’ class. I’m posting it online now, to share it with y’all and Google’s indexer. The paper is entitled “The Young Lords: Examining Its Deficit of Democracy and Decline. Read it here →
An opening summary paragraph is below, but consider reading the paper itself. It analyzes the Lords’ rise and fall in some detail. (more…)
Click the arrow button in the bottom right-hand corner below for a better view. (Sorry about the wind noise, folks!)
This was my second time traveling out to Hutto. Transcript and more information below. (more…)
I’m a bit late in posting this, but youth-led protests like this one are so awesome! Over 400 youth across the Bay Area walked out of their schools on Halloween to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s unannounced raids and terrorizing of Latino and immigrant communities over the past two years. Joshua Kahn Russell has an exciting report-back up at his blog. Via Indymedia.
