Black Politics and the American Left

Platypus 2016 convention

Held on Saturday April 2, 2016. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Christoph Lichtenberg (IBT) Xavier Danae Maatra (Chicago Freedom School) Description Beneath a consensus of avowed anti-racism, the American Left remains conflicted about whether and how to politicize race. This panel seeks to shed historical light on today’s political impasses, asking: How has racism changed throughout U.S. history, and to what degree has racism been overcome in America? [Read More]

Black politics in the age of Obama

Black politics in the age of Obama
ON MAY 6, 2013, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a conversation on “Black Politics in the Age of Obama” at the University of Chicago. The speakers included Cedric Johnson, the author of Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics (2007) and The Neoliberal Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, Late Capitalism, and the Remaking of New Orleans (2011); and Mel Rothenberg, a veteran of the Sojourner Truth Organization and coauthor of The Myth of Capitalism Reborn: A Marxist Critique of Theories of Capitalist Restoration in the USSR (1980). [Read More]