vibrancy of social movements in Zimbabwe w/ Emily Williams

Africa World Now Project

Image: Jacob Lawrence Migration Series - Panel 4

Dominant discourses that explore and examine African/a phenomenon/a usually follow a trajectory set by colonialist, imperialist projects that seek to categorically define Africa through a racial capitalist epistemology. Rarely do these discourses allow African/a peoples to speak for themselves or intentionally provide the platform for African/a peoples voices to be amplified.

This perspective is even applicable to the U.S. Black left. Many of these Black “radicals” are not conscious of their epistemic colonization.

Decolonization is after all a holistic process that involves intentional internal [self] critique as well as external [social] critique.

All of this has led to distorted and convoluted analysis and definitions of African/a itself.

To understand the contradictory narratives that attempt to speak for Africa and offer analysis on the various phenomenon/a, the structural processes of extraction guided by philosophical and epistemic systems that justify the racial global economy must include the role of labor and labor institutions.

Labor institutions and movements must deal with its [re]inscription of inequitable power relations created by its often-limited perspective on or ignorance of the implications of racial capitalism’s ability to structure and guide its strategies.

Processes that drive a real, substantive, internal critique of its marginalization of Black women in its institutions are case in point.
How can any organization, which claim to fight for workers’ rights, in turn marginalize and oppress Black women who give their energy to its lofty mission sustain its façade? The answer is simple it cannot, it must then be concluded that these institutions are agents of the very system that it pretends to be resisting.

This is why African/a women who are expanding, [quite frankly] exploding limited notions that structure labor movement practices are important to center in any conversation around rights, labor or otherwise.

Labor, the forces of production, all production, material and non-material, as an essential part of social organization, does not, and cannot escape being examined as being apart or divorced the processes of European ‘othering’.

Therefore, organizing labor on continental Africa, the African/a world for that matter, must continually be situated into the long processes of decolonization. This is vital now more than ever, particularly in a global economy where the definition and processes of work has shifted, if one were not pay attention, seemingly overnight? All while, the means of production are guided by artificial intelligence.

Labor organizations and movements are not beyond critique and must be measured at fundamental levels of thought and practice.

Today, we will listen to a conversation w/ Emily Williams and myself [James Pope].

Emily Williams is a human rights activist and social justice advocate, who’s work intentionally addresses gender, race, and other inequalities and advance equity and inclusion through sustainable program design throughout the African/a world.

She has designed leadership programs for youth and women on continental Africa and has been actively involved in developing networks & programs that combine practice w/ intellectual inquiry; specifically, exploring the interconnectedness of race, gender, class, and other systems or oppression/marginalization as a critical foundation for work and action which advances justice, social and otherwise.

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the indigenous, African, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people. Enjoy the program!