...What we finna do come tomorrow? ...especially if the overseer of your choice doesn't win ...will you fear power or contest with it? A hallmark feature of any presidential election in a racist country is the continued psychological warfare against the colonized, especially Black people, who, along with Arab Muslims, will be inevitably blamed, scapegoated or strategically pitted against one another in service of the powers that be, for no other reason than if we were to coalesce our efforts toward our own interests and liberation, that could signal the end of empire and all the symbolism, pomp and circumstance that they hope will keep us distracted and placated. We are living in a lie, a constant paradox: Black people are no better off from the open theft and profiteering of our culture by white people but appropriation masked as "multiculturalism" in the media is at an all time high and judging by the decreasing numbers of Black folks in physical public space in major metropolitan cities, is showing no signs of slowing down (if you can just "be" Black, why would you need Black people?). Record numbers of white people are using tiktok and other technologies to fine tune their mimicry of what they think Blackness is while at the same time decrying we won't be "replaced"; Vanity fair is publishing articles about the "radicalization of america's white young men" and giving a well known white supremacist a whole spread about how wealthy "conservative extremists" are calling themselves "anti-imperialists" in a fake populist rebrand while a privately owned newspaper is upset at its billionaire owner for blocking their presidential endorsement and also regularly publishing Israel centric propaganda around freeing the hostages when there are twice as many or more Palestinians held captive before oct 7? This is sometimes peppered with actual unbiased coverage of the genocide here and there (to some individual writers' credit). The US says it is committed to protecting Ukrainian sovereignty after Russia's attempts to annex their land but not that of the Palestinian people...who also had their land stolen? In 2021, Kamala Harris was quoted saying wars are fought over oil but in a few years it’ll be over water Elon Musk is building what will be the world's largest supercomputer in South Memphis, TN in a predominately Black community and authorities there greenlit the project with no community input or oversight in a part of the city that is currently plagued by a water crisis, replete with lead and other pollutants. This is 3 years after the community started a successful grassroots resistance movement that stopped two companies who were planning to build a major oil pipeline right in the middle of a historic Black neighborhood. They did the bulk of their organizing during and despite of a Trump presidency. European investors are buying farmlands in water rich areas, mostly in Africa and even in parts of the US to sell to areas that are water poor and dividing up last remaining farmland on earth to take advantage of what they call... “Empire crops” This has been happening under democractic and republican administrations. So again, what's going to be our answer? Will it b a departure from what colonialism wants, thinking about something other than yourself? What's it going to be after you slip that paper in that box? Recommended Reading and Resources Forthcoming at www.patreon.com/ihartericka This episode is dedicated to the memory of Rashad Pridgen (Soul Nubian). Rest in Power, my love https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-rashad-pridgens-artistic-life-celebration