The collectively generative nature inherent in the interdependent relationship between technology, the communal means of production and distribution and innovative physical and creative intellectual work is distracted and co/opted by the need to extract the value of this relationship as structured from the capitalist logic of labor. The sole purpose of this is to maintain an aggressive and exclusionary accumulation of capital in the hands of a few.
The creative and inquisitive nature of human social and cultural capacities feed the extractive forces of capitalism. The necessity to disembody knowledge production and sever the symbiotic relationship between all sentient beings from nature and the universe is a muti-complex process of maintaining the supremacist ethic that organizes current political and economic relations.
This fact, in its most theoretical and practical form, permeates the very cultural fabric of the dominant expression of global dis/order.
In short, capitalism is the form that functions to create life itself, therefore work is re/defined as labor in order to extract its value in all forms, not for communal benefit but the aggressive and exclusionary aggregation of capital through intentionally violent processes.
What are the material and intellectual contractions that indigenous African and African Diasporan communities must contend with in order to reconcile the social realities produced by capitalist logic today? At present, the dominant discourses of this reconciliation are centered around inherently detrimental practices, i.e., capitalism with a Blackface, the reproduction of the logic of private property as foundation to capital accumulation, etc.
Where do we re/turn to find a path toward freedom as move down the road to liberation? Where do we find a platform or practice to reintegrate with our collective selves?
It can be, and in the conversation with Georie Bryant you will hear next, found figuratively and literally with our hands in the soil.
A re/connection with the Earth itself. In a material and non-material synthesis of struggle and building.
The conversation you will hear next is a de/linking of capitalist logic of land as private property, food as African indigenous knowledge practices, and cooperatives outside of capitalist interpretations.
In short, we explore African indigenous relationships with land and food, as inherited throughout the African world as means to freedom.
Georie Bryant is a community organizer, chef, and agriculturalist native to Durham, N.C. Working both through his organization SymBodied and in collaboration with other organizations in the region, Georie seeks to address issues of historical and contemporary oppression, particularly those centered around food insecurity, cultural erasure and appropriation.
Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native, indigenous, African, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana; Ayati; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people.
Listen intently. Think critically. Act accordingly.