43 - Yours in Struggle (w/ Barbara Smith)
Hear the Bern
Bernie 2020
4.8 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 3 February 2020
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is there any term more vilified on the right than "identity politics"? Supposedly, "IDpol" is all about creating hierarchies of oppression, and the lower down the ranks you fall, the less value your voice has.
On this episode, Briahna talks to Barbara Smith, who as part of the Combahee River Collective - a radical, black, feminist organization based in Boston - coined the term in the late 1970s. Barbara explains that, far from excluding people, her group meant to include everyone in a common struggle for liberation by recognizing the unique challenges that different groups face. "If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression," the group wrote.
Smith recently endorsed Bernie for president, saying that our campaign and movement carries on the structural, intersectional politics for which she has fought all her life.
Barbara Smith is an author, activist, independent scholar, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. She lives in Albany.
Barbara Smith on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheBarbaraSmith
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Friends, by the time you get this, we should know the results of the Iowa caucuses. |
| 0:11.1 | So before we get into this week's episode, I just want to say thank you to the millions of people who make this campaign what it is, |
| 0:20.2 | who phone banked and door knocked, texted and donated, |
| 0:24.6 | spoke to your parents, co-workers, and friends |
| 0:28.6 | about why this struggle truly is so, so vitally important. |
| 0:35.6 | Every four years you hear it, that this election is the most important |
| 0:40.8 | election of our lifetimes. Well, there's a case to be made that this year, it's true. It's not |
| 0:49.2 | just that we have a corrupt demagogue in the White House, who rules through fear, division, |
| 0:55.2 | and intimidation. It's not just that we've reached levels of wealth inequality unmatched |
| 1:00.7 | since the Gilded Age, a plutocracy so imbalanced that we have a billionaire openly trying to |
| 1:07.2 | buy this election. And it's not just that all over the world, we're seeing the rise of far-right leaders |
| 1:14.3 | who channel populist rage against the most vulnerable while allying themselves cynically with capital. |
| 1:22.9 | It's that, on top of all of that, the clock is ticking on our capacity to keep large swaths of this |
| 1:31.3 | planet habitable. All over the world, ecosystems are in collapse. Oceans are acidified. Entire |
| 1:39.1 | continents are burning. Climate refugees are already on the move. This moment might just be our last off-ramp |
| 1:48.6 | before the world we leave our children becomes unrecognizable to the one we inherited. |
| 2:08.6 | This campaign and the movement behind it are our best possible chance to head that future off of the past and to reverse trend lines that no matter what the Wall Street Journal |
| 2:13.6 | and economist might tell you have been heading in the wrong direction for decades. |
| 2:20.0 | And the truth is that we here at HQ are riding a tiger that is a genuine movement. |
| 2:26.8 | One made up of all of you. That phrase, not me, us, is so much more than a slogan. |
| 2:36.2 | It's a guiding philosophy that speaks to solidarity, mutual support, and extending a hand to those who need one. |
| 2:46.2 | Because frankly, we all need solidarity at some point in our lives. |
... |
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