take a listen.  a reading of Ed Whitfield's essay, " What must we do to be free? On the building of Liberated Zones".  


Ed Whitfield’s brilliance was recently published on “Prabuddha: Journal of Social Equality,” in their special issue exploring the myths of inherent essence or “svabhava” of humans. Authors from the anti-caste traditions examine The Brahmin Svabhava-uninterrupted access to surplus, labor, and property over the ages. And authors from Black liberation movements examine White supremacy and its uninterrupted access to surplus, labor, and property over the ages. ~


Check out the journal articles at http://prabuddha.us/index.php/pjse/article/view/23/16 


Ed Whitfield ~ I have come to think very differently. Freedom is not a single event. It is a process of being free. We can have some freedom now. It is not just something far in the future. We don’t have to wait until we know how to have it completely and overthrow all oppression. We can start freedom now and build on it more and more, never losing sight  of the  guiding  vision,  our “north  star”.  We  don’t  have  to  be  satisfied  with  continued oppression  and  exploitation  as  the  best  we  can  do  and  somehow  acceptable  as  long  as  we, personally and perhaps additionally, our family and friends are relatively privileged. No, for me, there  is  an  uncompromising  need  to  look  hard  at  the  way  things  are,  understanding  the  recent historical  roots  of  the  existing  system,  and  the  current  relationships  of  power  and  privilege  that characterize the times. I can say unequivocally, in answer to that question chanted in the 60s “What do we want?” “FREEDOM!” “When do we want it?” “NOW!” Freedom Dreams. But what do we even mean by “freedom”? Can we articulate it? Are we able to envision it in the contemporary  world?  Do  we  dare  dream  about  something  that  far  removed  from  our  current reality? Let me use past and current observations to help us see the world of freedom possibilities. ~

http://prabuddha.us/index.php/pjse/article/view/23/16

on liberated zones | Ed Whitfield

listen to  "the groundings" with artist, intellectual and revolutionary kai lumumba barrow as she reflects on black surrealism, what suzanne cesaire called, "the tightrope of our hope". 

what does liberation from the absurd require in our practice and of our imagination? what maps must we make and where must we insist?

connect with kai lumumba barrow at http://galleryofthestreets.org/, as she and jazz franklin continue to create freedom maps that provoke us to ask more unsettling questions about where we are, how we got here and where we must go.

on Black surrealism | kai lumumba barrow

listen to "the groundings" with cultural organizer, trainer and parent julien terrell as he offers his understanding on movement, the contradictions of non-profit organizations, and how we bring together vision + structure + scale to win on a revolutionary vision.

can non-profits be revolutionary vehicles? are we in a position to win? what relationships and practices will we need in the here and now to move forward?

groundings

on movement | julien terrell

take a listen.  a reading of the phenomenal toni cade bambara's "on the issue of roles".

what remains relevant, remains work.

echoes 

on the issue of roles | toni cade bambara

take a listen to Ed Whitfield as he talks about community wealth, equality and surplus. he raises a number of challenges to our ideas about capitalism, offers insight into the most pressing demands towards the most urgent crises of capitalism and ecology.

to put forward the same question as Ed, " what does it mean to ask for equality in the house of the thief?"

echoes

on freedom and surplus | Ed Whitfield

In Blood Bones and Dirt, Ed Whitfield paints a metaphor for how we can conceive of the obscene stolen and hoarded wealth -- a mountain of blood and bones upon this pile of dirt. Our task, then, is to return our stolen inheritances to the commons by democratizing wealth.

Blood Bones and Dirt | Ed Whitfield

questions, conversations and stories on Black ecology, imagination and liberation.

Ghetto Symposium

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