43 - Yours in Struggle (w/ Barbara Smith)

Hear the Bern

Bernie 2020

News Commentary, News, , Politics

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2020

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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 (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
0:09.5	Caucasus. So before we get into this week's episode, I just want to say thank you to the
0:17.0	millions of people who make this campaign what it is, who phone banked and
0:22.3	door knocked, texted and donated, spoke to your parents,
0:26.5	coworkers and friends about why this struggle truly is so so vitally important.
0:36.0	Every four years you hear it,
0:38.1	that this election is the most important election
0:41.8	of our lifetimes.
0:43.0	Well, there's a case to be made that this year, it's true.
0:48.0	It's not just that we have a corrupt demagogue in the White House,
0:52.0	who rules through fear, division, and intimidation.
0:56.4	It's not just that we've reached levels of wealth inequality unmatched since the Gilded Age,
1:02.0	a plutocracy so imbalanced that we have a billionaire
1:05.9	openly trying to buy this election. And it's not just that all over the world we're seeing the rise of far right leaders who channel
1:15.2	populist rage against the most vulnerable while allying themselves cynically
1:20.9	with capital. It's that on top of all of that the clock is
1:27.4	ticking on our capacity to keep large swaths of this planet habitable.
1:33.2	All over the world ecosystems are in collapse.
1:36.4	Oceans are acidified.
1:38.6	Entire continents are burning.
1:41.6	Climate refugees are already on the move. This moment might just be our
1:47.6	last off-ramp for the world we leave our children becomes unrecognizable to the one we inherited.
	...

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