In Class with Carr

The passing of James Earl Carter Jr. [1924-2024] marks the close of not only a century-long life but the end of an entire political, cultural, and social era. Carter, the 39th President of the United States, was an “outlier” in the US Social Structure—an embodiment of the deeply rooted laboring class from the neo-Confederate South. His worldview and political philosophy were shaped by a unique fusion of white and Africana ...

“As the world braced for intensifying international conflicts between countries, corporations and cultural movements, the final week of 2024 also saw a notable intensification of class conflict within the ranks of the nativist MAGA movement, as tensions grew between its controlling elites and its increasingly vocal white nationalist base. Often referred to as a “MAGA Civil War,” this internal rift was fueled by provocative...

2024 is ending with Intensifying nationalist and populist movements capturing more electorates and elected officials in key countries around the world. In the US, the Republican Party is no exception, its intensifying battles between oligarchs and policymakers enabled by white nationalism previewing what is in store for the general US population in 2025. Meanwhile, the global social structure moves inexorably toward an inc...

This week we will use the origin story of Philadelphia Freedom Schools to revisit the essential components of an African education: The intergenerational transmission of knowledge, values and wisdom; the development of character, social responsibility and accountability; and the training of next and future generations to assume roles currently held by elders. By re-membering from the deep well of African thought and practi...

December 5th marked the centennial birthday of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe of Azania [South Africa], the revolutionary Pan Africanist founder of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania and one of the most impactful thinkers, organizers and voices of the 20th century. The day was marked by retrospectives in South Africa and in other places across the world, including at Sankofa Video and Books in Washington, DC. But Sobukwe has ...

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As energy from the 2024 US federal elections continues to recede and US and global social structures fight to cover the inexorable shift of economic and political tumult with a distracting and numbing facade of normalcy, we turn to three subjects that should anchor how we plan for seizing the momentum of memory in 2025: Black Institutions, Black People and Black Possibilities.

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The enemies of our common humanity work hard to shape and distort memory for this reason, above all others. Remembering that we have defeated oppressive conditions, movements and moments when we come together in sufficient number is the first step to defeating them again and building the spaces and societies we want for ourselves and others. When we do this our way, we win.

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Election Day is here for most of the United States. Voting options are open across the country. Millions have already voted and millions more will vote before November 5th, the final day to vote. US Presidential candidates always fight over federal policymaking within and beyond the borders of the U.S. state, but the outcome of the 2024 presidential election has the potential to determine outsized changes in U.S. and globa...

Election Day is here for most of the United States. Voting options are open across the country. Millions have already voted and millions more will vote before November 5th, the final day to vote. US Presidential candidates always fight over federal policymaking within and beyond the borders of the U.S. state, but the outcome of the 2024 presidential election has the potential to determine outsized changes in U.S. and globa...

Election Day is here for most of the United States. Voting options are open across the country. Millions have already voted and millions more will vote before November 5th, the final day to vote. US Presidential candidates always fight over federal policymaking within and beyond the borders of the US state, but the outcome of the 2024 presidential election has the potential to determine outsized changes in US and global di...

This week we continue our exploration of Ta Nehisi Coates’s book of essays, “The Message,” and reactions to it. As the US Presidential election approaches, we use themes evoked in the book as points of entry to ask how social structures mediate, shape and often dictate how we engage in governance dialogue and decision making, including what we believe is true and how we decide what is and isn’t important in our lives.

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What happens when justice is delayed? If for too long, or with too effective a prolong opposition, is it inevitable that it be permanently denied? If it is accurate that “politics is the art of the possible but art creates the possible of politics,” as Ta-Nehisi Coates writes in his book “The Message, what is the responsibility of the artist to imagine not only transforming positive social change but a world in which deep ...

The first “post-COVID” US presidential election is upon us. As most of the people in the world have endured national elections, it is the US’s turn in a year that has seen or will see the majority of the world’s people experience national elections, from Senegal to Sri Lanka, from Mexico to Mozambique, from India to the European Union. But the pandemic has receded and life cycles beset with perpetual spectacle are back in...

The contemporary US and global Social Structure, like the formations that preceded it, shape mass opinion with words, frequently without proof of fact and increasingly it seems without sustained thinking. What happens when the word is given on a subject, a person, the meaning of an event or an era? What is a word? What is the word? What does the word of celebrity mean in fact, if anything? What does it signify? What does i...

On the 61st anniversary of the 1963 Birmingham Murders, a week that saw whitelash to the first (and only?) Harris-Trump debate and the 53rd annual Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference, we consider strategies for pursuing justice claims and liberation work in order to build a vastly improved society in the current Social Structure? This week’s question: How do we respond to absurdity, which in many ways poured ...

Annual late summer rites of ritual combat—football season—converge this year with the four-year cycle of federal presidential election season. As the first (and only?) presidential debate looms, has the shakeup at the top of the Democratic ticket led to much appreciable change in the US Social Structure? The answer: It’s Debatable. This week, as we prepare to undertake the second iteration of our Introduction to Africana S...

Marking the one hundredth anniversary of Baldwin’s birth and preparing to offer the second iteration of Introduction to Africana Studies in Knubia this September, today’s session explores some of the ways that studying experiences and circumstances of African people requires us to see beyond ourselves, to see our interdependency, and to avoid traps built on political and social exclusion.

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