<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3k1DVKxCxp4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen title="SHABOOZEY &amp; JELLY ROLL Win BEST COUNTRY DUO/GROUP PERFORMANCE | 2026 GRAMMYs Acceptance Speech"></iframe></figure><div class="kg-card kg-callout-card kg-callout-card-purple"><div class="kg-callout-emoji">🗣️</div><div class="kg-callout-text"><b><strong style="white-space:pre-wrap">Love it? Disagree? Grassroots Thinking</strong></b> encourages principled debates and exchanges across the wide range of ideas of the Black working class. We welcome your comments. <a href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/#/portal/signin" rel="noreferrer">Sign in</a> or <a href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/#/portal/signup" rel="noreferrer">join now</a> to comment. It's free and easy.</div></div><p>It isn’t a revelation that some African people born in the United States have an irrationally strong attachment to the idea of America<strong>. </strong>That idea is all tied up in the myth of a virtuous American identity, borne of overcoming adversity through ingenuity and perseverance. Whether from self-preservation, self-hate, or delusions of grandeur, it isn’t uncommon for oppressed and marginalized people to attempt redemption by washing their history of its subversion and exchanging it for a narrative that soothes the ego. Sometimes, to retain a sense of agency, it isn’t uncommon to hear African people on U.S. soil defiantly proclaim that “'<em>We'</em> built America.” To this, I ask <em>How</em>? and, <em>Why would “we” do that?</em></p><p>The effort to merge African identity with colonizing Western powers is as old as the French and British flags flying over African and Caribbean nations. It’s as old as white people on the East Caribbean dollar. It’s as old as the imposing European syllables and sounds fumbling around African mouths across the diaspora. It sticks out as awkwardly as a round peg in a square hole. Yet, it surrounds the African in daily life. It implores them to forget themselves, to shed old garments and take up the disguises, words, arms, and the goals of imperial powers. <strong>It convinces us that these violent imperialist nations were <em>built</em> by us, rather than stolen through bloodshed, starvation, and disease. <mark>It makes us participants. </mark></strong></p><figure class="kg-card kg-gallery-card kg-width-wide kg-card-hascaption"><div class="kg-gallery-container"><div class="kg-gallery-row"><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/Sexyy-Red-rolling-loud-2024-billboard-1548.jpg-1.webp" width="942" height="628" loading="lazy" alt="" srcset="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w600/2026/02/Sexyy-Red-rolling-loud-2024-billboard-1548.jpg-1.webp 600w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/Sexyy-Red-rolling-loud-2024-billboard-1548.jpg-1.webp 942w" /></div><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/juelz-1.jpg" width="2000" height="1464" loading="lazy" alt="" srcset="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w600/2026/02/juelz-1.jpg 600w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w1000/2026/02/juelz-1.jpg 1000w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w1600/2026/02/juelz-1.jpg 1600w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w2400/2026/02/juelz-1.jpg 2400w" /></div><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/dabrat-1.png" width="1920" height="1080" loading="lazy" alt="" srcset="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w600/2026/02/dabrat-1.png 600w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w1000/2026/02/dabrat-1.png 1000w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w1600/2026/02/dabrat-1.png 1600w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/dabrat-1.png 1920w" /></div></div></div><figcaption><p><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Rappers draped in the American flag. (Left to right, Sexyy Red, Juelz Santana, Da Brat.) Sources: </span><a href="https://www.essence.com/fashion/how-rap-icons-gave-american-style-a-new-attitude/" rel="noreferrer"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Essence</span></a><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> and </span><a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/features/hip-hop-american-flag-beyonce-sexyy-red-1235761296/" rel="noreferrer"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Billboard</span></a><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">.</span></p></figcaption></figure><p><u>The desire to take credit for establishing America reveals an underlying allegiance to the project of America as a whole.</u> It relies on the assumption that America, whatever its origins, is a net positive, something to take pride in. It also obscures the violence inherent in the formation of a nation by retroactively giving consent for the nation in question to exist, consent that neither the stolen Africans nor the indigenous populations of Turtle Island gave. America was not built; it was stolen. </p><p>Land was wrestled from indigenous tribes and parceled out to European men who stole African people to work it, learn it, and cultivate it for profit. Infrastructure was built for the use of European landowners, who instilled in themselves the authority to lord over the life and death of those deemed lesser. With that ill-gained authority, they forced African people to pave roads and build homes and commercial centers under threat of whip, mutilation, and further physical punishments. Legislative buildings were built by those stolen people, in which those Europeans signed African dispossession into law. They cleared away entire tribes, histories, vegetation, and animals to assemble their violent country on top of the ruins. </p><blockquote class="kg-blockquote-alt">Why would we take credit for something that shouldn’t even be here?</blockquote><hr /> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background:#FFF;border:0;border-radius:3px;box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15);margin:1px;max-width:540px;min-width:326px;padding:0;width:99.375%;width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px);width:calc(100% - 2px)"><div style="padding:16px"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUQg1PnAHAX/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style="background:#FFFFFF;line-height:0;padding:0 0;text-align:center;text-decoration:none;width:100%" target="_blank"> <div style="display:flex;flex-direction:row;align-items:center"> <div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;flex-grow:0;height:40px;margin-right:14px;width:40px"></div> <div 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C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631"></path></svg></div><div style="padding-top:8px"> <div style="color:#3897f0;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:550;line-height:18px">View this post on Instagram</div></div><div style="padding:12.5% 0"></div> <div style="display:flex;flex-direction:row;margin-bottom:14px;align-items:center"><div> <div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;height:12.5px;width:12.5px;transform:translateX(0px) translateY(7px)"></div> <div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;height:12.5px;transform:rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px);width:12.5px;flex-grow:0;margin-right:14px;margin-left:2px"></div> <div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;height:12.5px;width:12.5px;transform:translateX(9px) translateY(-18px)"></div></div><div 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style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;width:144px"></div></div></a><p style="color:#c9c8cd;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:17px;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:8px;overflow:hidden;padding:8px 0 7px;text-align:center;text-overflow:ellipsis;white-space:nowrap"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUQg1PnAHAX/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style="color:#c9c8cd;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:17px;text-decoration:none" target="_blank">A post shared by IMANI B. (@sheisimanib)</a></p></div></blockquote> <script async></script> <p>Our forced participation in this cursed place through tax dollars spent on genocidal wars is enough. We were already made nonconsenting conspirators to their crimes, sent to fight <em>their</em> wars against their other colonial and imperial victims. We don’t need to consent to further identification. We don’t need to take credit for this place. </p><p>This is not to say that African people have not made anything valuable on this soil. Displaced Africans created thriving communities, learned the land, established loving bonds, and produced art reflective of their historical and cultural position. Art that, like the bodies, labor, homes, and everything else African people here have managed to establish, is often taken, imitated, watered down, and neutralized in service of the creation of a fictional “American” culture. </p><p>Unfortunately, the effort to retain some sense of ownership over those cultural products has led some Africans to demand credit for America itself. Some Africans, desperate for recognition of their contributions and resentful that their cultural inheritance has been attributed to generational thieves, have tried to find shelter within the umbrella of America, to lay claim not only to the stolen art and history but to the country itself. </p><p>This strong resurgence of pride in a “Black American” identity, which accompanies a stubborn assertion that we have as much “right” to Americanness as white patriots do, is a gross misdirection. There were plenty of issues with the term African American, a term that became fashionable in respectable circles and regained popularity in the 1980s, but for all of its flaws it should not be lost on us that the current mainstream preference for “Black American” removes Africa completely yet retains, and even emphasizes, <em>American</em>. </p><figure class="kg-card kg-gallery-card kg-width-wide kg-card-hascaption"><div class="kg-gallery-container"><div class="kg-gallery-row"><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/thethrone.webp" width="620" height="611" loading="lazy" alt="" srcset="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w600/2026/02/thethrone.webp 600w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/thethrone.webp 620w" /></div><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/stankonia.webp" width="500" height="500" loading="lazy" alt="" /></div><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/mikejones.webp" width="500" height="500" loading="lazy" alt="" /></div></div><div class="kg-gallery-row"><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/recession.webp" width="500" height="500" loading="lazy" alt="" /></div><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/too-short.webp" width="500" height="500" loading="lazy" alt="" /></div><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/masterp.webp" width="500" height="500" loading="lazy" alt="" /></div></div><div class="kg-gallery-row"><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/dipset.webp" width="500" height="505" loading="lazy" alt="" /></div><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/death-certificate.webp" width="500" height="500" loading="lazy" alt="" /></div><div class="kg-gallery-image"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/2livecrew.webp" width="500" height="500" loading="lazy" alt="" /></div></div></div><figcaption><p><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Album covers curated by Dave Bry in his Medium article "The American Flag On Rap Album Covers Throughout History." </span><a href="https://medium.com/the-awl/the-american-flag-on-rap-album-covers-throughout-history-bc7fa0ad1074" rel="noreferrer"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Source: </span><i><em class="italic" style="white-space:pre-wrap">The Awl</em></i></a></p></figcaption></figure><p>The preoccupation with owning Americanness can be seen in circular and divisive social media discourse about British or Caribbean Africans playing “Black American” characters in films, whether fictional like Celie in <em>The Color Purple</em>, or biographic<strong> </strong>like Harriet Tubman and Fred Hampton. This particular manifestation of <em>back-door patriotism</em> is fueled by anti-immigrant, anti-African rhetoric from groups like the Foundational Black Americans (FBA),<strong> </strong>and it is indicative of a larger cultural regression incited by patriotic reactionaries who intend to erase all traces of Africa in order to sterilize our people into complacent American individualism. </p><p>This back-door patriotism is tempting for a people who have been told constantly that outside of the arbitrary borders of America, they have no culture, no language, and no identity, so they must hold tight to what was made here and protect it as if it is all that we have ever had. <strong>But this backward allegiance must be resisted forcefully. </strong></p><p>The borders of the United States are violently maintained–and not only via walls, forced deportations, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement kidnapping squads. They are maintained and legitimized within the cultural output of Americana aesthetics, by billionaire Black celebrities wearing the stars and stripes, by the romanticization of America as a metaphor (an overused and boring metaphor), its symbolism, and iconography. Like clockwork, a pop singer or rapper will wrap themselves in the flag like armor, and their fans take up arms for them against criticism. They will dig their heels in and bemoan that we should be able to “reclaim” the imagery. They will argue that draping yourself in the flag isn’t <em>necessarily</em> patriotism because those artists occasionally make shallow critiques of select presidents or legislative policies. The same artists and pop celebrities that have nothing to say about the slaughter in the Congo, the imperial assaults on Haiti, the genocide in Palestine, the expansion of cop cities, and the attacks on the Black poor and working class here in the so-called United States. </p><p>Artists like Beyonce, whose political efforts extend no farther than a Democratic Candidate’s <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-taps-beyonc-houston-rally-reproductive-rights/story?id=115146706" rel="noreferrer">campaign rally</a>, are also, allegedly, subtly critiquing the United States via American flag iconography? What exactly is the critique? And what critique (if we assume it exists) can be taken seriously if it cannot be distinguished from a tacit endorsement? We are expected to accept that in the same place where Nina Simone, Gil Scott Heron, and Tracy Chapman spoke and sang clearly and unequivocally, we now have to produce a magnifying glass to find an alleged critique hidden under layers of allegedly subversive Americana imagery? <u>If you have to search that hard for the critique, then it is likely nothing but a figment of your intense desire for it, brought on by the desperation to find something about this country worth saving and protecting.</u> What is evident in the verbal gymnastics it takes to claim the glory of a country while denying your participation in its gore is that <strong><mark>these protectors of American iconography see no issue with the illegitimate country itself, just with their exclusion from it. </mark></strong></p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-width-wide kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/GJC5ZPXXIAAPfLA-1.jpeg" class="kg-image" alt="" loading="lazy" width="1584" height="891" srcset="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w600/2026/02/GJC5ZPXXIAAPfLA-1.jpeg 600w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w1000/2026/02/GJC5ZPXXIAAPfLA-1.jpeg 1000w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/02/GJC5ZPXXIAAPfLA-1.jpeg 1584w" /><figcaption><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Beyoncé, </span><i><em class="italic" style="white-space:pre-wrap">Cowboy Carter</em></i><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> cover art.</span></figcaption></figure><p>There is nothing to reclaim here; that symbolic soil is desolate. The American flag is cursed fabric stained with blood. The stars and stripes are symbols of global Western violence and calculated destabilization. This is the flag that stands for the assassinations of democratically elected leaders, CIA coups, and funded militias. The American flag is stamped on the sides of bombs that drop on colonized people yearly, monthly, and daily.</p><p>In the <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/1997/5/19/excerpt_of_a_speech_malcolm_x#:~:text=How%20do%20you,in%20the%20Congo." rel="noreferrer">words of Malcolm X</a>, </p><blockquote>Don’t think you don’t look Congolese. You look as much Congolese as a Congolese does. They got all kinds of Congolese over there. How would you feel if one of them walked up to you and asked you about what your government is doing in the Congo?</blockquote><p>Even symbolically or metaphorically, why should we, as stolen and colonized African people, identify with the thieves and murderers? </p><blockquote class="kg-blockquote-alt">Why should we align ourselves with the colonizers and not the colonized?</blockquote><hr /><p>So, at this point, the question that usually comes up is “Well, what do you want Black Americans to do?” Although it is typically asked in bad faith, I will still answer it. Drop the “American” because you are not. Find in yourself the history and legacy of people who resisted colonization and expand the breadth of the cultural inheritance you possess outside of these imaginary borders. Aim for bigger and better things than Black faces at the helm of bloody empires and pop stars dressed in the stars and stripes. Stop defending a flag that will never defend you. Unite with other colonized people around the globe who are fighting against Western hegemony and imperialist domination. <strong>There is no need to go down with this ship.</strong></p><p>The unification of colonized people worldwide is an assertion of our humanity against the dehumanization embedded in American patriotism. It is the political clarity that comes with understanding ourselves as Africans that opens us up to deeper political, cultural, and revolutionary legacies. It is strengthening our tie to the continent and asserting not only solidarity but a shared future built on a shared past. </p><p>Rejection of Americanism is necessary for our survival. We do not need to take credit for building this place. We need to unite with the colonized of the world who are fighting to tear it down, reclaim their dignity, and destroy the forces of Western colonial violence that enchained and dragged us here in the first place. </p>

<div class="kg-card kg-callout-card kg-callout-card-purple"><div class="kg-callout-emoji">🗣️</div><div class="kg-callout-text"><b><strong style="white-space:pre-wrap">Love it? Disagree? Grassroots Thinking</strong></b> encourages principled debates and exchanges across the wide range of ideas of the Black working class. We welcome your comments. <a href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/#/portal/signin" rel="noreferrer">Sign in</a> or <a href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/#/portal/signup" rel="noreferrer">join now</a> to comment. It's free and easy.</div></div><p>A dear, dear comrade hit me with a set of serious questions about the efficacy of calling for a general strike to stop ICE. It was not a question premised on rejection but on efficacy as currently outlined. Some of their critical points were centered on the efficacy of such a strike hurting or hindering the Trump regime, since the regime has clearly demonstrated that it is perfectly willing to punish and outright starve the strongholds of the Democratic Party (and even elements of his own base with <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/09/18/trump-tariffs-inflation-maga-economy" rel="noreferrer">tariffs</a> and <a href="https://time.com/7329733/snap-benefits-food-stamps-shutdown/" rel="noreferrer">cuts to SNAP</a>). So, <mark>how will a coordinated strike, that would largely be conducted in Democratic Party-run states and urban strongholds, hurt this regime?</mark> This is especially the case if few, or any, of the transnational corporations that dominate the US economy support or participate in the strike (keeping in mind that most of the businesses that supported the strike in Minneapolis were small “mom and pop” businesses). </p><p>Let me be clear, mass strikes, in and of themselves, are not going to bring the Trump regime to heel, particularly if they are primarily concentrated in the coastal states and the urban strongholds of the Democratic Party. <strong>It is going to take a lot more than strikes, even though we won’t get there without them. </strong></p><blockquote class="kg-blockquote-alt">Strikes are absolutely necessary, but not sufficient.</blockquote><hr /><p>In order to dislodge the Trump regime, the strike movement must focus a critical portion of its energy on fracturing the Trump coalition, and fracturing it decisively. It is going to be extremely difficult to separate the regime from its true believers. The movement has to start by reaching the forces who are aligned primarily on economic lines with the Trump coalition.  The lowest-hanging fruit in that orbit are the Trump forces in the labor movement itself. They must be appealed to on account of Trump’s empty promises regarding the reindustrialization of the empire, while deliberately seeking to eliminate organized labor. </p><p>The second, and more critical target, is the farmers–the small corporate aggregates, and the family farmers, particularly those in the “red” states–that form the geographic base of the Trump coalition. These forces are essential to move in order to ensure that the mass strike isn’t just an urban phenomenon, with the racial undertones that would imply. No, it has to hit red states, rural and suburban areas, and it has to shut the economy down at the point of production, distribution, and consumption on as wide a scale as possible. Trump and his coalition would feel that, literally. <strong>In order for the mass strike to work, a genuine national farm-worker (and beyond) alliance must be formed and strategically deployed. </strong></p><p>Now, to be clear, a general strike is a means to an end. The question is <em>What is, or should be, the end, in this case?</em> Getting rid of Trump and the Trump regime would be the most popular answer. I would argue that while that objective is a necessary starting point, without a broader and deeper set of objectives, that singular objective in and of itself would just lead to another turn of the wheel to a dead end–returning the Democrats and their neoliberal politics and imperatives to power. </p><hr /><p>The general strike being called for must not repeat the mistakes of the No Kings Movement in having no demands. Neither should it be pigeon-holed into being an effort to win the 2026 midterm elections for the Democrats nor an effort to preserve the constitutional order or the false agreements of bourgeois society. It must aim to deal with the challenges of our times head-on. <strong><mark>To that end, it must push back against the threats of AI and automation, the acceleration of climate change, the concentration of capital and the extreme inequality it is breeding, and, ultimately, the capitalist system itself.</mark></strong></p><p>This is not a short-order task, to be clear. But, if we are going to pull off a general strike, it shouldn’t be half-assed, particularly if it might ignite massive repression from the Trump regime and a civil war. </p><p><strong>We must take aim at it all.</strong> But, we have to do the necessary organizing work to build our capacity to win, not just put up a valiant fight. To this end, I want to offer to this movement the Build and Fight Formula and to offer it in this context, along strike lines. </p><figure class="kg-card kg-bookmark-card kg-card-hascaption"><a class="kg-bookmark-container" href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/nonviolence-is-violence-too-somebodys-gotta-die/"><div class="kg-bookmark-content"><div class="kg-bookmark-title">How nonviolent protests or civil resistance is violence, too</div><div class="kg-bookmark-description">A brief survey of the history and philosophies of nonviolent protests, revealing why nonviolent struggle is not actually nonviolent.</div><div class="kg-bookmark-metadata"><img class="kg-bookmark-icon" src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/icon/fav-green-background--1000-x-1000-px--1.png" alt="" /><span class="kg-bookmark-author">Grassroots Thinking</span><span class="kg-bookmark-publisher">Too Black</span></div></div><div class="kg-bookmark-thumbnail"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/thumbnail/john-lewis-selma-1965-2.jpg" alt="" /></div></a><figcaption><p><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Author and poet Too Black discusses the inevitable repression that follows nonviolent action.</span></p></figcaption></figure><hr /><p>The press for a general strike is the opening part of what we style as the practices of position–practices a social movement has to build towards. The practices of position are those things people are actually doing, but which we have to bring to scale in order to build our collective capacity and aggregate our power. But, per our analogy, think of the practices of position as our strike fund. The deeper the strike fund, the better our chance to win our demands. </p><p>Now, in the real world context we find ourselves in, there are millions of people engaged in the practices of position all throughout the empire, best exemplified by all of the mutual aid projects that have emerged since the Occupy Movement, the countless community gardens that been built over the last 20 years, or all of the Maker Spaces and Fab Labs that have developed over that same period of time, and the numerous self-defense brigades that emerged in virtually all of the cities invaded by ICE this year. Unfortunately, however, these initiatives aren’t sufficiently coordinated to exercise maximum power. To this end, in order for the general strike actively being called for to win, we are going to have to get millions more people involved in developing the capacities outlined in the practices of position, and we are going to have to accelerate our capacity to federate and coordinate at scale quickly. Very quickly. And to be clear, it is these practices that will enable us to move past the mere ouster of the Trump regime, and instead put us in position to go for it all. </p><p>So, when considering the general strike, and assessing if it is worth pursuing, I hope you endeavor to answer yes, but to condition that yes on doing the organizing to bring in new forces, fracture the Trump coalition, and build a new world from the bottom up that goes beyond the limits of the bourgeois order and the two-party duopoly that preserves it within the US empire. Dream big, leave no stone unturned, and aim for the stars. </p><p>Build and Fight!</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/01/PsOfManeuver.png" class="kg-image" alt="" loading="lazy" width="1088" height="1319" srcset="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w600/2026/01/PsOfManeuver.png 600w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/size/w1000/2026/01/PsOfManeuver.png 1000w, https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/2026/01/PsOfManeuver.png 1088w" /><figcaption><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">The Buid and Fight formula, illustrated.</span></figcaption></figure><hr /><h3 id="more-on-the-january-30-2026-general-strike">More on the January 30, 2026 general strike</h3><p><a href="https://nationalshutdown.org/" rel="noreferrer">NationalShutdown.org</a></p><h3 id="more-on-the-buildandfight-formula">More on the #BuildAndFight Formula</h3><ul><li><a href="https://cooperationjackson.org" rel="noreferrer">Cooperation Jackson's website</a></li><li><a href="https://x.com/CooperationJXN" rel="noreferrer">Cooperation Jackson on X</a></li><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/CooperationJackson" rel="noreferrer">Cooperation Jackson on Facebook</a></li></ul><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iasY7MDau6E?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen title="#BuildAndFight Formula 9: General Strike"></iframe></figure><hr /><h2 id="more-on-the-economy-from-grassroots-thinking">More on the economy from Grassroots Thinking</h2><figure class="kg-card kg-bookmark-card"><a class="kg-bookmark-container" href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/opinion-a-major-financial-crash-is-coming-we-need-to-organize-mutual-aid-in-our-communities/"><div class="kg-bookmark-content"><div class="kg-bookmark-title">How organizing mutual aid helps the working class during financial crisis</div><div class="kg-bookmark-description">Organizer and author Kali Akuno discusses the need to organize mutual aid to combat extreme inequality in the K-shaped economy.</div><div class="kg-bookmark-metadata"><img class="kg-bookmark-icon" src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/icon/fav-green-background--1000-x-1000-px-.png" alt="" /><span class="kg-bookmark-author">Grassroots Thinking</span><span class="kg-bookmark-publisher">Kali Akuno</span></div></div><div class="kg-bookmark-thumbnail"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/thumbnail/photo-1651340981821-b519ad14da7c-1" alt="" /></div></a></figure><figure class="kg-card kg-bookmark-card"><a class="kg-bookmark-container" href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/kids-corner-economics-what-tariffs-teach-us-about-black-capitalism/"><div class="kg-bookmark-content"><div class="kg-bookmark-title">Kids’ corner economics: What tariffs teach us about Black capitalism</div><div class="kg-bookmark-description">For National Black Business Month, we discuss tariffs and trade to analyze the outcomes of Black capitalism’s attempt to solve issues of racial injustice.</div><div class="kg-bookmark-metadata"><img class="kg-bookmark-icon" src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/icon/Untitled-design-24.png" alt="" /><span class="kg-bookmark-author">Grassroots Thinking</span><span class="kg-bookmark-publisher">Too Black</span></div></div><div class="kg-bookmark-thumbnail"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/thumbnail/photo-1444840535719-195841cb6e2b-2" alt="" /></div></a></figure><figure class="kg-card kg-bookmark-card"><a class="kg-bookmark-container" href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/black-african-liberation-grassroots-economies-pt-1-rootedness-for-our-people-our-economies-our-liberation/"><div class="kg-bookmark-content"><div class="kg-bookmark-title">Black/African Liberation &amp; Grassroots Economies pt.1</div><div class="kg-bookmark-description">A brief exploration into what lies between the gaps and intersections of Black liberation, urban planning, and local economic development.</div><div class="kg-bookmark-metadata"><img class="kg-bookmark-icon" src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/icon/Untitled-design-26.png" alt="" /><span class="kg-bookmark-author">Grassroots Thinking</span><span class="kg-bookmark-publisher">GRT Archive</span></div></div><div class="kg-bookmark-thumbnail"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/thumbnail/1IeD3j-hvM7ZmgYUppx3Hnw.png" alt="" /></div></a></figure><figure class="kg-card kg-bookmark-card"><a class="kg-bookmark-container" href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/black-african-liberation-grassroots-economies-pt-ii-situating-economy-and-ourselves-in-the-struggle-from-the-internal-neocolony/"><div class="kg-bookmark-content"><div class="kg-bookmark-title">Black/African Liberation &amp; Grassroots Economies pt. II: Situating ‘economy’ and ourselves in the struggle from the internal (neo)colony</div><div class="kg-bookmark-description">This story is reprinted from the Grassroots Thinking Archive with care. We honor its first publication by including it without editing or revision. As part of our commitment to Prioritize Accessibility and Inclusion and Build with Intentionality, you can view this and other archived stories in their original form at</div><div class="kg-bookmark-metadata"><img class="kg-bookmark-icon" src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/icon/Untitled-design-27.png" alt="" /><span class="kg-bookmark-author">Grassroots Thinking</span><span class="kg-bookmark-publisher">GRT Archive</span></div></div><div class="kg-bookmark-thumbnail"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/thumbnail/merritt-headerimage1.jpg.webp" alt="" /></div></a></figure><figure class="kg-card kg-bookmark-card"><a class="kg-bookmark-container" href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/black-african-liberation-grassroots-economies-pt-iii-constructing-the-counter-war-that-our-liberation-demands/"><div class="kg-bookmark-content"><div class="kg-bookmark-title">Black/African Liberation &amp; Grassroots Economies pt. III: Constructing the counter-war that our liberation demands</div><div class="kg-bookmark-description">This story is reprinted from the Grassroots Thinking Archive with care. We honor its first publication by including it without editing or revision. As part of our commitment to Prioritize Accessibility and Inclusion and Build with Intentionality, you can view this and other archived stories in their original form at</div><div class="kg-bookmark-metadata"><img class="kg-bookmark-icon" src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/icon/Untitled-design-28.png" alt="" /><span class="kg-bookmark-author">Grassroots Thinking</span><span class="kg-bookmark-publisher">GRT Archive</span></div></div><div class="kg-bookmark-thumbnail"><img src="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_1370-1.jpg" alt="" /></div></a></figure><figure class="kg-card kg-bookmark-card"><a class="kg-bookmark-container" href="https://www.grassrootsthinking.com/black-african-liberation-grassroots-economies-pt-iv-collective-struggle-is-our-past-and-future/"><div class="kg-bookmark-content"><div class="kg-bookmark-title">Black/African Liberation &amp; Grassroots Economies pt. IV: Collective struggle is our past and future</div><div class="kg-bookmark-description">This story is reprinted from the Grassroots Thinking Archive with care. We honor its first publication by including it without editing or revision. 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The Community Movement Builders Newark chapter and the Black Alliance for Peace New York City/New Jersey Citywide Alliance issue a statement demanding answers and accountability for the death of Jean Wilson Brutus.

BAP Nashville releases an official statement denouncing the lack of transparency and community involvement and rejects Mayor O'Connell's task force's legitimacy.

Author and poet Too Black briefly surveys the history and philosophies of nonviolent action to reveal why nonviolent struggle is not truly nonviolent.

From the notes from the black underground collection: From launching Arm the Spirit, the first revolutionary prison newspaper, to co-founding the Jericho Movement, Black Panther Party & Black Liberation Army veteran, Jalil Muntaqim details stories of resisting empire and organizing for a new world.

This week's headlines on MacKenzie Scott's donation to The Trevor Project adds yet another chapter to her story of philanthropic leadership. But have her donations to HBCUs and other colleges and organizations actually made a difference?

Community Movement Builders strongly condemns the United States' war on agression against the sovereign people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. "This war is not about drugs, democracy, or human rights. It is about oil, power, and control."

The holidays are a time when many people are forced to face their grief individually and collectively. As we navigate the season, let us remember that grief should be embraced with tenderness and curiosity.

The nurse offered pills to lower his blood pressure. He chose to work out instead. In his first for Grassroots Thinking, Antoine Davis shares the physical and mental health benefits of exercise, and how he reversed high blood pressure without medication.

Meeting the moment: mutual aid organizing to survive and thrive during the coming economic depression.

Incarcerated writer Xandan Gulley writes about why he rejects gender-affirming care due to a change in drugs purchased by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and how this process has led to feelings of a slow death.

A personal essay by teacher and writer, Steph Curry, on how capitalism shapes our family dynamics and influences our career decisions.

Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and Democratic Socialists of America's New York chapter have a hard time reaching Black working-class voters, though their universal policy proposals seemingly benefit the Black working class. Journalist Katie Coss investigates that tension.

I didn’t mean to become a death doula. That’s the truth. There wasn’t a ceremony, a robe, or a whisper that said, _You’ve been chosen._ Instead, there were moments. Sitting with my cousin Delancey in the early ’90s as AIDS hollowed him out, when the world turned its back and I couldn’t. Sitting with my grandfather, holding space while he poured out stories he knew might die with him. Whispering to my grandmother that it was okay to let go when I saw she was hanging on for us more than for herself. At thirteen, leading grief circles at school because our classmates were dying, and the adults didn’t want to talk about it. And later, countless times, sitting with strangers whose families never showed—becoming their last witness, their final congregation. That was the beginning. Now that I carry the title of death doula, I move with full intention, but the work itself hasn’t changed—it’s still presence, listening, and love. I still sit at bedsides and offer my hands when words fall short. I still gather stories, whether whispered from an elder’s fading voice or spoken through the silence of someone who can no longer speak. I still give people permission to rest when their bodies are weary but their hearts are holding on. I still create spaces—grief circles, conversations, rituals—where our pain and our love can breathe together. The difference now is that I walk into these moments knowing exactly what I am there to do, naming the work for what it has always been. * * * When people ask why I became a death doula, I tell them it’s because I don’t believe we should keep carrying this loneliness into the grave. Black folks, especially, deserve more than to have our last breath swallowed in a sterile room with no one to call our name. We spend our whole lives surviving systems not built for us, and too often, those same systems snatch away our dignity at the end. The statistics are not gentle. Black Americans are less likely to have access to hospice and palliative care. We are more likely to die in hospitals, hooked up to machines, our bodies treated like experiments rather than sacred ground. We are less likely to have advance care planning, not because we don’t care, but because conversations about death in our families often get shut down by a mix of faith, fear, and survival fatigue. And when we do want care, we’re often met with providers who don’t look like us, don’t understand us, and don’t take the time to listen. The structural issues are plain. Racism in healthcare that makes doctors less likely to prescribe pain medication for Black patients, leaving too many to die in agony. Economic inequities that make it nearly impossible for working-class families to take time off to sit with loved ones in their final days. Cultural erasure that strips away our traditions of homegoing, prayer circles, song, and storytelling, replacing them with silence and fluorescent lights. We deserve better. We deserve to leave this world surrounded by the same love and care that sustained us in life. For Black folks, that love has always come from community—the neighbors who dropped off casseroles when money was tight, the church mothers who prayed over us, the cousins who filled the house with laughter during holidays, the chosen family who showed up when blood relatives could not. That same community that carried us through births, heartbreaks, and survival in a country that often refused to see us whole must also be present at the end. Dying should not strip us of the circles that raised us, or the rituals that made us feel human in the first place. The presence of community at the bedside reminds us that we are not disposable, that our lives mattered, and that even in the quiet of our last breaths, we are still held. > To die without that love is to be robbed twice. First by a system that denies us care, and then by the absence of the people who made us who we are. * * * I think often about my grandmother. She was a sharp-tongued woman with a soft spot for brown beans and soap operas. When she died, it wasn’t in the peaceful, at-home way we like to picture. It was in a place where nurses often seem more afraid of black bodies than invested in comfort. I remember watching her chest rise and fall, thinking: _Is this it? This is how we let her go?_ Her death broke something in me, but it also lit a fire. It showed me that end-of-life care wasn’t just about pain management or medical charts. It was about presence. About making sure no one felt disposable. That lesson has followed me into every room I enter as a death doula. Sometimes the family is there, crowded and humming with grief. Sometimes it’s just me and the person, and I become both the choir and the congregation. I’ve sung melodic singer-songwriter melodies under my breath. I’ve written down last words. I’ve massaged lotion into cracked hands and oil into dry scalps, knowing it might be the last act of tenderness they ever feel. **And every time, I think about how many of our people don’t get even this.** The barriers are bigger than one person can hold. They are baked into the design of a country that has never valued Black life, so why would it value Black death? Hospitals aren’t built for our rituals. Insurance doesn’t cover our needs. Wages don’t allow us the luxury of stepping away from work to sit with our dying loved ones. Even within our own communities, we wrestle with silence. Death is a taboo, a thing to be prayed away. We don’t always want to talk about advance directives or wills because we think it invites death closer. But not talking about it doesn’t save us—it isolates us. It leaves our elders making hard choices alone. It leaves our bodies in the hands of strangers who don’t know our songs. **And so, too many of us die alone.** I became a death doula because I believe in repair. In saying: _You will not leave this world unseen._ My work is not just about holding hands in the last hour; it’s about pushing for systems that recognize our humanity. We deserve accessible hospice and palliative care that meets us where we are, in our neighborhoods, not just in wealthy suburbs. We deserve culturally competent providers who understand that a dying room can be filled with music, prayer, laughter, and storytelling, and that this isn’t chaos, it’s care. We deserve policies that support caregivers, so no one has to choose between a paycheck and sitting with their mother in her final days. We deserve a return to our traditions, where community gathers to honor the transition, where food is cooked, songs are sung, and no one is left behind. I called my book _Never Can Say Goodbye_ because that’s what this work feels like: an ongoing conversation with the dead and the dying, a refusal to let their lives vanish quietly. Each person I’ve sat with carries me forward, reminding me that death is not just an ending, it’s a mirror. It asks us: > _Who are we to each other, really? How do we show up when it matters most?_ Black folks deserve the kind of endings that reflect the fullness of our lives. Not rushed. Not ignored. Not alone. We deserve to be wrapped in care, to hear our names called, to know we mattered. I became a death doula because I refuse to let loneliness be the last chapter of our story. * * *

Incarcerated writer E. Paris Whitfield shares a story of personal connection with a fellow prisoner through literature, and how a single fashion choice left a profound impact on his life.

When we think about social movements, we tend to focus on hope, collective action, and strategy. But beneath the chants, marches, and meetings lies another reality: death is always close at hand. For people on the frontlines—especially Black, queer, disabled, and other marginalized organizers—mortality is not an abstract fear. It’s a daily negotiation with systems of oppression, state-sanctioned violence, and the unrelenting weight of capitalism. As a death and grief worker, end-of-life questions come up often, and I can see how concerns with mortality are woven into the lives of activists. The anxiety, exhaustion, and even the deep passion people feel for social justice work is rooted in the awareness that their lives—and the lives of those around them—are finite. But what actually happens when those “fighting the good fight” face the end of their own lives? And how do they die with the dignity our oppressive systems often deny us? # **Death under capitalism** Capitalism affects every aspect of our lives. In the United States, end-of-life care is riddled with inequities caused by capitalism. People die alone because insurance and geography determine who receives quality care and treatment. Our community is constantly robbed of care due to capitalist exploitation: workers dying in unsafe conditions, organizers without health insurance, and grassroots leaders dedicating unpaid hours of their lives to the community while trying to meet their basic survival needs. This reality brings up painful questions: * Who gets to die comfortably, surrounded by support? * Who dies drowning in medical debt? * Who is remembered for their heroism, and who slips away quietly under systemic neglect? Activists spend their lives giving to movements without being resourced to care for themselves in life or in death. And while death doulas or other healing practitioners can fill some of the gaps, the inequity remains stark. # **The risk of organizing** The heightened risk of mortality is an immanent part of movement work, particularly for marginalized activists. This is not a hypothetical risk, but a lived reality for those who engage in resistance against oppressive systems. From police brutality to medical racism and gender-based violence, the issues activists face are both personal and systemic. The physical, mental, and spiritual toll of frontline work compounds the danger—because activists aren’t just targeted for what they do, but also for who they are. This makes their work inherently perilous, and death becomes an omnipresent companion. Consider the tragic deaths of those involved in movements like Black Lives Matter: _six men died_ following protests in Ferguson, and in Kenya, 31-year-old activist Omondi Ojwang died while in police custody after speaking out against authorities. Like Demartravion “Trey” Reed, who was found dead on a Mississippi college campus, Ojwang's body showed signs of trauma that police dismissed, and both deaths were hastily labeled suicides. These stories are not isolated; they represent the very real, very tangible risks that come with fighting back against entrenched power, even if your fight is simply existing. Activism is a constant dance with mortality. Facing violence, being surveilled, and operating under continual threat leads many activists to develop a unique relationship to death. It’s not just the possibility of death that weighs on them, but the certainty of an untimely, unjust end. Yet, they persist. This gives rise to an essential paradox: why risk death knowing that the labor of resistance can sometimes lead to such a violent end? The answer might lie in what activists seek to achieve: the freedom of communities, the right to exist without fear, and the hope for a future that transcends the oppressive present. For many, the possibility of achieving liberation outweighs the certainty of living under systems of domination. Activists understand that they may not live to see the world they are fighting for, but they pour themselves into the struggle because they are part of something bigger than themselves. Their sacrifice—whether they survive it or not—becomes an act of defiance against systems that reduce their lives to expendability. Death becomes less of a deterrent and more of a tool to drive purpose. The struggle becomes urgent: a clear marker of what’s at jeopardy and what must be won. And in the face of this harsh reality, activists won’t necessarily ask “Will I die for this?” but “How will I live with the deepest conviction?” # **Loneliness on the frontlines** For many, dying alone is the deepest fear. In movement spaces, that fear is more acute with sharper edges. People fear dying in state custody or being estranged from loved ones due to political divides or isolation due to burnout and mental health crises. Activism can drain time and energy, leaving many people depleted, with thin connections that are easy to maintain but harder to rely on for end-of-life care. Death doulas can intervene, not only by accompanying the dying, but by helping movements cultivate practices of communal care that extend beyond life. Without intentional structures of care, dying alone is more likely. This doesn’t mean that dying alone is inevitable, but it requires collective planning to prevent it from happening. # **Learning from death in activism** Through my own confrontations with death and grief, I’ve come to see this truth: awareness of mortality breeds courage. Those who accept their finiteness are often most willing to take bold, transformative action. But there’s a temptation to romanticize activist death that I’d caution against: imagining it as a badge of honor and proof of the ultimate sacrifice. People who distort death can start to crave violence and see death as a symbol of bravery—whether they cause death or experience it. But _seeking_ death is not the same as _accepting_ it. Death is not a prize, but deserves honor. Dying is not evidence of devotion, but it is a sacrifice. True courage lies in recognizing death as a natural part of the cycle of life, not something to be glorified or pursued. Social movements reveal this paradox: death is inseparable from living with conviction, and facing mortality is both necessary and terrifying. # **Building a culture of death care in movement spaces** So what do we do with all this? How can we practically build a culture of death care that gives activists some reprieve and dignity? * Training and resourcing death and grief doulas/workers into movement spaces. * Creating grief rituals for the dead and dying beyond memorials. * Building structures of care so people do not have to face death, sickness, and grief alone. (Mutual aid, meal trains, grief circles, medical and mental health training) * Talking openly about mortality, so the fear of death doesn’t quietly drain movements of energy. * Create care plans that include networks/contacts for end-of-life and crisis care, including warmlines, doulas, spiritual/religious support, ceremonial requests, and more. credit: Mwabonje Ringa for Pexels ## Death is collective, not individual Capitalism would have us believe that death is a private, individual burden. But death is collective—it shapes movements, communities, and generations. For those on the frontline, confronting mortality isn’t optional; it is a daily reality. Activists, like everyone else, will face death. How movements respond is critical to whether we leave people to die feeling isolated and tired, or whether we honor them in life and in passing. As a death worker and griever, I hope we continue to strengthen a culture of death care. Because how we die—and how we grieve—shapes how we live, fight, and imagine the world to come.

On ICE and the imperial wars against the working class in Chicago, Gaza, Caracas, and Port-au-Prince.

According to _Eviction Lab_, nearly half of all 2023 eviction filings in Los Angeles were against Black renters. What makes this even more troubling is that Black tenants only make up 31 percent of the city’s rental population. The disparity is certainly not accidental. It’s a predictable outcome of a housing system that is built on exploitation, and Black families are the ones stripped of their economic security. Here, we take an in-depth look at why Black families are the target of this eviction pandemic and how grassroots organizations are fighting back against housing as a commodity. ## A history of dispossession It’s no secret that today’s housing market is based on profiting off the basic need for housing. While most renters are feeling this squeeze, after years of deliberate housing discrimination. Black renters are experiencing the worst of it. In a _2019 Princeton interview_, Keeanga-Yahmatta Taylor, author and professor of African American studies at Princeton, summed up this housing epidemic, saying, “We have a society in which homeownership is the key to the good life, and African Americans have not had fair access to it." In 1924, the real estate industry created a rule that warned brokers from introducing people of a different race into a neighborhood, or else they would lose their license. Within the next decade, the U.S. government discriminated against Black homeowners formally with a process known as redlining. This discriminatory process was a consequence that was born out of the policies of the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) created in the 1930s, which was one of the first formal housing policies. To determine eligibility and mortgage risk, the government had created color-coded risk maps of neighborhoods. The most desirable group was blue and the red areas were the ones that were excluded, or redlined. In her book,_Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership_ , Taylor explained that while HOLC was originally designed to help homeowners refinance their mortgages, the same risk maps later become used to deny or limit loans based on racial makeup of a neighborhood. Then, added to this was the creation of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in 1934, which created mortgage insurance. But here’s the catch: to get the loan, homeowners had to move into communities outside the city that are racially homogeneous. At the time, the communities were mainly white. So, as Black people began moving into the big cities, the government was not backing their loans because they’re now in what the government deemed a high-risk or redlined area. You would think it would have gotten better after the ’64 Civil Rights Act banned the use of racial discrimination in federally funded housing, but the damage was done. Urban renewal projects in the 1950s and 1960s compounded the harm. During this period, city governments had demolished hundreds of Black neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal. At the peak of urban renewal, it is estimated that a shocking minimum of _50,000 families_ were displaced, while a 1964 House of Representatives report said this figure was 66,000. By the 1990s, neoliberal housing reforms had shifted housing from a community anchor to an investment asset. Housing policies are now less about shelter and more about creating markets. Corporate landlords and private equity firms are now the ones profiting from housing instability. ## The numbers don’t lie The eviction crisis is well-documented, and the numbers are scary. Data from the _Princeton Eviction Lab_ reveals that Black renters, especially women, are facing the highest risk of eviction. According to data from the last year, the Eviction Lab estimates that 54 percent of the people facing eviction were Black and Hispanic women. Overall, landlords have filed for 67,035 evictions over the past month in states across the country. A _UCLA study_ by researcher Alexander Ferrer on corporate landlords has found that large firms disproportionately target Black tenants in the Los Angeles area with aggressive eviction filings used as intimidation tactics. The worst offenders? Equity Residential, Essex Property Trust, and Avalon Bay Communities. All three have a history of financing the California Apartment Association’s anti-tenant protections work. In the study, Ferrer’s goal was to “identify a pattern of eviction in which Black tenants are surgically evicted from neighborhoods host to relatively few Black renters, which has thus far been unobservable in other studies.” He added, “Innovations in corporate practice in screening and eviction, which responded to the risk and regulatory environment of the pandemic, further contributed to saddling these Black tenants with disproportionate rent debt, redoubling the extirpative character of Black tenancy.” In other words, corporate landlords were using predatory business practices to make quick and outsized profits, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ferrer explained that landlords would relax screenings and offer low security deposits to attract Black tenants and then charge high utility fees and rent to evict the tenants when they couldn’t keep up. This reveals that eviction is not about bad tenants but about maximizing profit through legal dispossession. A report from the _U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development_ backs up this data. According to the report, “White households in the sample pay less rent ($683) on average than African-American ($730).” This means that Black households are more vulnerable to eviction when unexpected costs arise. Ultimately, resulting in eviction as a cause and consequence of poverty. ## Evictions are a business model The sad truth is that for corporate landlords, eviction is no longer a last resort and more of a business strategy. Landlords are prioritizing profit over tenant welfare, and evictions are a tool to pressure tenants, collect fees, and cycle units to higher-paying tenants. A prime example of this is the private equity firm, Blackstone. As one of the country’s biggest landlords, Blackstone has filed hundreds of eviction cases and is a large contributor to housing instability. The firm benefited significantly from the 2008 financial crisis by buying foreclosure properties and turning them into higher-priced rentals. This firm is an example of how eviction is used as a profit mechanism, and current legal systems still reinforce this imbalance. _Justice Douglas_ summed up the crisis: “Summary eviction proceedings are the order of the day. Default judgments in eviction proceedings are obtained in machine-gun rapidity, since the indigent cannot afford counsel to defend. Housing laws often have a built-in bias against the poor. Slumlords have a tight hold on the Nation.” To fight evictions, tenants need to lawyer up, and for many, the system appears too intimidating or unaffordable. Findings from the _Columbia Human Rights Law Review_ reveal that 90% of tenant-litigants are forced to navigate eviction proceedings without counsel representation. ## The human toll on Black families But this is more than just numbers. Behind every eviction is a family that is forced into crisis. For Black families, the loss of a home deepens existing inequalities and means losing stability. This affects everything from their jobs and schooling continuity to their community ties. Studies have shown that eviction can cause long-term harm. Children from evicted homes experience higher rates of school absenteeism, and adults suffer from elevated stress. A study from the _National Library of Medicine_ found that evictions harm health and can be linked to mortality, injection drug use, food insecurity, and acute healthcare utilization, as evictions reduce patients’ healthcare access. This human cost is not incidental. It is the price that Black families are paying for a system that is ultimately designed to profit from their displacement. ## Fighting back with resistance and advocacy But all hope is not lost as Black renters and allies are fighting back. Across the country, tenant unions have emerged to rally against corporate landlords. Advocacy groups like Right to the City and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) fight for tenant rights and provide resources. For Example, Right to the City has a campaign initiative called “Homes for All.” The campaign focuses on addressing the housing crisis and tenant organizing through political education. Currently, they have a training series on “ _Rooted & Ready Eviction Defense_ to educate renters on what their options and rights are. Grassroots groups are fighting hard to reframe housing as a human right and not a commodity. ## Housing justice equals racial justice The current eviction crisis is not a policy failure but the deliberate outcome of a housing system that is deeply rooted in racial capitalism, and Black families are feeling the squeeze. But the resistance is growing, and tenant unions and advocacy groups are proof of this. Their work also makes one thing clear: the fight for housing justice is linked to the fight for racial justice. Breaking this cycle of discrimination requires collective action that challenges corporate landlords and demands better legal protections for tenants, and resistance is growing.

First, there were postcards of lynchings sent from post to post. Now, videos go viral within hours of posting. What's the point of these images of Black death? Who are they for? Whose silence makes the killing possible again? Read more for a personal essay on the public spectacle of Black death.

From the time of his early days as a "voting rights" advocate, to his involvement in the Revolutionary Liberation struggle, to his leadership role in the Islamic movement here in the U.S., Imam Jamil Al-Amin has been a central figure in the fight for equity, fairness, and justice.

Organizer Ryan Mills shares his firsthand experience as one of the organizers of the 2025 National Black Radical Organizing Conference in Indianapolis, IN. "This was truly an event that I will remember for the rest of my life."

From above-ground activism and organizing youth in schools and extra-curricular groups to underground activities like bank robberies and police shootouts, Abdulmumit's message is one of commitment to liberation and embracing art to ignite revolutionary ideas.

Black History Month focuses on our past, but Black August focuses on our fight and struggle. To honor our freedom fighters and political prisoners during Black August, I committed to its principles: fast, train, study, and fight! A personal essay about one contributor's observance of Black August.