Today, in honor of Black History Month, we celebrate the life of Hubert Henry Harrison (April 27, 1883 – December 17, 1927), a West Indian-American writer, speaker, educator, political activist based in Harlem, New York. He was described by union leader A. Philip Randolph as the father of Harlem radicalism and by John G. Jackson as "The Black Socrates." Harrison’s activism encouraged the development of class consciousness among workers, black pride, secular humanism, social progressivism, and free thought. He denounced the Bible as a slave master's book, and said that black Christians needed their heads examined. He refused to exalt a "lily white God " and "Jim Crow Jesus," and criticized Churches for pushing racism, superstition, ignorance and poverty. Religious extremists were known to riot at his lectures. At one of his events, he attacked and chased off an extremist who had attacked him with a crowbar.
In the early 1910s, Harrison became a full-time organizer with the Socialist Party of America. He lectured widely against capitalism, founded the Colored Socialist Club, and campaigned for Eugene V. Debs’s 1912 bid for president of the U.S. However, his politics moved further to the left than the mainstream of the Socialist Party, and he withdrew in 1914. He was also a big supporter of the IWW, speaking at the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike, and supporting the IWW’s advocacy of direct action and sabotage. In 1914, he began working with the anarchist-influenced Modern School movement (started by the martyred educator Francisco Ferrer). During World War I, he founded the Liberty League and the “Voice: A Newspaper for the New Negro,” as radical alternatives to the NAACP. The Liberty League advocated internationalism, class and race consciousness, full racial equality, federal anti-lynching legislation, enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, labor organizing, support for socialist and anti-imperialist causes, and armed self-defense.
Hubert Harrison, pictured here in 1913, in a suit and fedora. By Unidentified Photographer - American Labor Museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80055166
Why "#abolish ICE" when you can simply disarm #ICE?
Disarm ICE before any idea of what you can do in the majority.
Besides, The last major law abolished by the U.S. was effectively slavery and involuntary servitude nationwide with the 13th Amendment in 1865. The Amendment ended legal #slavery and involuntary servitude, but its "punishment" clause still allows involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime, leading to ongoing efforts like the proposed Abolition Amendment to fully eradicate it.
Many wealthy celebrities who could be role models for something positive are only role models for #corporate.
If this description resembles your career, you may still have time in your vapid life that is a #slave, to actually join #humanity. #NewsRewind #slavery #NoKings !
Page 23 of the Second Chapter of "Under the Dragoness's Paw", my NSFW series featuring dominant dragonesses, subby male dragons and plenty of kinky fun!
been trying for a decade to articulate that the #surveillance economy is a form of financial #slavery.
slaveowners kept dockets on slaves. the first securitized assets in Wall Street were bundled slave dockets held by slaveowners.
after abolition, many plantations created banks to use a similar docket system for indentured servants. once banned regionally, Reagan resurrected them as national credit reports.
Silicon Valley #techbros exist to globalize the financialization of slavery.
A Republican won in #Tennessee? Shocking 🥸
"West Tennessee had the highest concentration of #slaves due to large cotton #plantation, while Middle Tennessee had a substantial slave population in its agricultural economy, and East Tennessee had the fewest due to its smaller farms. Enslaved labor was also used for infrastructure like #railroads and #civic buildings, with cities like #Nashville serving as major hubs for the internal #slave trade." #Slavery #NewsRewind
I've watched enough #NFL over the years to realize it's simply a #tax deduction for the owners now.
A bad commercial with slaves taking any position you pay them to take.
Tax welfare for the extremely wealthy and the greater the NFL contract, the larger the deductible.
(NFL spam bots) #Slavery #Thanksgiving #NewsRewind
Why did capitalism, slavery and colonialism come together in Western Europe at the end of the middle ages ?
The usual story is that the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, dramatised by the fall of Constantinople in 1453, constricted the trade routes to the more advanced societies in the East, motivating the 'voyages of discovery' search for new trade routes - and trade was already detached from the relatively self-sufficient and stable rural social formations we know as 'feudalism'. The UK, being an island nation at the western fringe, seafaring for both food and defense, occupied the preeminent position for this development. The inflows of capital from slavery and colonialism then recursively facilitated capitalism, urbanisation, and ultimately industrialisation.
There is much truth in this picture, but in his 'Brief History of Equality' Thomas Piketty adds a new insight. Applying Adam Smith's contemporary description of an effective capitalist economy, Piketty finds that in fact both Chinese and Ottoman societies were more 'capitalist' at the inception of the industrial revolution. So what really made the difference in Western Europe ? Piketty's answer is centuries of European wars - that had forged more command-and-control establishments, bigger navies, better weaponry, etc - in short: military force, and the ability/willingness of Europeans to use it.
I'd add another point Piketty might well have missed (because the French tend to have a view of race different from the anglophony): the specific form of racial slavery the Europeans perpetrated was more extractive than the land empires of the Chinese and Ottomans, enabling even more exploitation, brutality - and capital accumulation. Which in turn gives rise to a scary question: is the 'othering' of different peoples not just an essential feature of fascism - but of capitalism ?
I've watched enough #NFL over the years to realize it's simply a #tax deduction for the owners now.
A bad commercial with slaves taking any position you pay them to take.
Tax welfare for the extremely wealthy and the greater the NFL contract, the larger the deductible.
From the depths of Brazil’s Amazon to Indonesia’s rainforests, some of the world’s most isolated peoples are being squeezed by #roads, miners & drug traffickers—a crisis unfolding far from public view or effective state protection.
Public debate is also shaped by #stereotypes — some romanticize them as “lost tribes,” while others view them as barriers to #development.
Survival’s research concludes that half of these groups “could be wiped out within 10 years if governments & companies do not act.”
#UncontactedIndigenous peoples are not “lost tribes” frozen in time, Watson said. They are contemporary societies that deliberately avoid outsiders after generations of #violence, #slavery & #disease.
Holy fuck. This damning report from #Politico exposes the Young Republicans #Nazi chats. Thousands of #Telegram messages between young #GOP leaders have been leaked. Heinous and depraved are just two words which barely describe the messages.
Routinely, these people talked about gas chambers, slavery, and rape. But it doesn't stop there. One person said, "I love Hitler."
From the article:
"William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words 'n--ga' and 'n--guh,' variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as 'epic.' Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that 'everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.'"
Human-read Marxist audiobook of Karl Marx’s Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 31: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist (from the first English edition, 1887) by Socialism for All ...
Capital, Vol. 1, Ch. 31 (1867) by Karl Marx. Human-read Audiobook of Marxist Theory ( socialismforall.substack.com )
Human-read Marxist audiobook of Karl Marx’s Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 31: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist (from the first English edition, 1887) by Socialism for All ...