S & D in Real Time
From the Editors
A double issue (86-87) featuring a section addressing political education and alternative institutions including Afrocentric education is in preparation under the editorship of Yusuf Nuruddin. The issue also includes a conversation with the Russian artist Keti Chukhrov and the concept of the common good. [Updated 11/28/21] ... Read more
S&D in Real Time
S&D Real Time is a place for commentary, discussions and debate on matters of concern to the working class as a whole. Content shared here is curated by the Research Group on Socialism and Democracy but does not necessarily reflect any “official” perspective or endorsement. Unlike our journal, published three times a year, the content shared here are not subject to a peer-review process.
It’s not enough to judge a left journal by its cover. A recent case in point: people in left social media circles of late have been taking shots at the democratic socialist magazine Jacobin’s latest issue, with its provocative (and maybe confusing) cover bearing the slogan “Lower the Crime Rate.” A range of radical voices online have reacted to this cover... Read more
Against the Grain host C. S. Soong and Joe Ramsey look back at the legacy of Richard Wright in an interview inspired by Ramsey's 'Sifting the “Stony Soil” of Black Marxism: Cedric Robinson, Richard Wright, and Ellipses of the Black Radical Tradition.'
What would the negation or even transcendence of "whiteness" look like? In this essay by Joseph G. Ramsey, an S&D editorial board member, Guy Endore's Babouk is used to think through this question. It takes the apparently impermeable stratification of the 18th century slave ship as a microcosm for considering the social distance between white and black layers of the emerging global proletariat as its starting point... Read more
On the 113th anniversary of your birth, Sept. 4, 1908.
Today, September 4, marks the 113th anniversary of the birth of Richard Wright (1908-1960), one of our most important modern American writers, a crucial figure in both the Black radical and Marxist traditions. A path-breaking revolutionary artist, a searing social critic, and a powerful transnational truth-teller, Wright dramatized crises afflicting the USA and the... Read more
Cedric Johnson’s contributions to this New Politics Symposium challenge us to confront the complexity of actually existing Black political life without falling back on the homogenizing assumptions of a “Black exceptionalism” that denies African Americans the same level of class, cultural, regional, and ideological diversity routinely extended... Read more
On June 10th, the Deputy Assembly of the Professional Staff Congress, which represents the City of the University of New York’s professional staff, passed a resolution that supported the Palestinian people’s rights and in so doing condemned Israel’s depredations against the Palestinian people. This far-reaching... Read more
I don't know if there is a record for the forced transfer of state (as distinct from federal) prisoners. If so, it may belong to frequent S&D contributor Kevin "Rashid" Johnson (see S&D ##38, 43, 61, 66), who has been "compacted" from one state system to another six times in the last nine years. Originally incarcerated in 1990 in his home state of Virginia, he has been moved since 2012, in succession, to Oregon, Texas,... Read more
S&D has paid close attention to the Cuban revolution and more generally to the Caribbean, including to developments in Haiti. Generally, scholarly and policy insights into the revolutions have strenghthened the partisan anti-imperialist and emancipatory interests of our authors. Recently our co-sponsored project, Shelter & Solidarity hosted an important conversation about... Read more
In a world that viewed portrait painting as an affectation of the rich, Alice Neel (1900-1984) believed all people had a right to have a portrait painted. On canvas, Neel depicted everyday people in a way that dignified them and viewed them as agents for change. She gave her subjects both personality and character, a feat that revealed their capacity to endure and to struggle. They are never broken or demoralized. And now we... Read more
The facts are undeniable. In response to Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians fighting to prevent evictions from their homes in East Jerusalem, Hamas, a spin-off from the Muslim Brotherhood, began firing short-range missiles manufactured from scrap metal into Israel. Within a few days, powerful American-made missile launchers, guided by the most sophisticated technology, began bombarding the Gaza Strip.
This latest... Read more