Peace - Wishing everyone a restful end of 2025. Before we close out the year, I’m excited to share this podcast episode that I recorded in November 2024 with Millennials Are Killing Capitalism, one the podcasts that I consider essential to my own political formation, and always learn something from. It was an honor and joy for me, and I got the chance to talk with Josh about a bunch of the themes, topics, concepts that serve as the foundation of this publication.
The episode is titled “Rootedness and the Black Commune with Austin Cole”. Josh provides an overview at the beginning of the episode:
“We start with Toni Morrison’s concept of rootedness and how it informs urban planning and economic development. From there, we’ll dig into Strategies of Counter-war—how fascists are shaping local policy, and how BAP-Baltimore is building alternatives from the ground up. We examine the threat of elite capture and the strategic use of municipal power: how can engagement with the state enable collective self-determination rather than dilute it? Can it do such a thing?
We also explore expanded notions of self-defense, the Black commune as theorized by George Jackson and Orisanmi Burton, and the four principles guiding grassroots efforts toward that vision.
Finally, we’ll sit with the question of mass consciousness—what it demands of us now, and how we might cultivate it together.”
It’s a two-hour conversation and I would love for folks to listen to the whole thing, but in case that’s a LOT, here are the rough time stamps for different.
[0:00:00] Toni Morrison’s Rootedness for Black Liberation
[0:11:01] Rootedness in Urban Planning and Economy
[0:28:37] Counter-War Strategies for Black Liberation
[0:47:57] Building Mass Power to Avoid Elite Capture
[1:06:25] Beyond Armed Resistance: Collective Self-Defense
[1:15:01] Creating Spaces for Black Radical Becoming
[1:32:24] Ideological Incoherence and Captured Conscience
[1:39:04] Learning from Cuba’s Consciousness-Building
[1:48:57] Building a Generative Communal Culture
[1:58:11] Centering the People for Future Liberation
I would encourage folks to listen on one of the platforms where MAKC streams (listed below), and if you can, sustain their by joining their Patreon or becoming a supporter on Buy Me a Coffee. The episode is embedded at the end of this post as well.
Also check out all their fantastic other work and insightful conversations with some of the sharpest organizers, scholars, and thinkers among us — both audio podcasts and YouTube Lives.
Finally, you can read the installments of the four-part series that served as the basis of this conversation, which I also republished on this blog in 2024:
Black/African Liberation & Grassroots Economies PT. IV: Collective Struggle Is Our past and Future
If you have thoughts on the episode, I’d love to hear them, and here’s to a revolutionary new year as we enter into 2026. ¡Venceremos!
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