Tip Of The Spear by Orisanmi Burton (A Review by Jared Ball)

Originally published with Propaganda In Focus I decenter these duly noted, juridically mediated, and scholastically authorized sources of evidence, focussing instead on “discredited,” “inadmissible,” and “untrustworthy” modes of knowledge, analysis and narration. I construct my argument by thinking and theorizing with Black rebels, both living and dead. – Orisanmi Burton, Tip of the Spear: Black…

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Book Review: Words Covered In Ivy, Not Yet In Blood

https://www.youtube.com/embed/oz87K9l3y2s Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer’s Awakening. New York/London: The New Press, 238 pp. $16.95.   Reviewed by Todd Steven Burroughs LEAVE IT TO A continental African to ironically describe his idyllic university days in the context of the blood and betrayal of the most barbaric of European colonialism and…

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Debunking an illusion inhibiting the Black Struggle: A review of Jared Ball’s new book

Originally published by Nino Brown as part of the Liberation School of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Introduction In the wake of the most recent rebellions against racism and police terror, there were widespread calls to “support Black businesses.” These calls were another reiteration of what Jared Ball demystifies in his latest book: The Myth…

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Book Review: The Prologue, The Prototype, The O.G. Hater

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3_awAF4Gjho Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918 (Vol. 1, published in 2009). Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for Equality, 1918-1927 (Vol. 2, published in December 2020). Both volumes written by Jeffrey B. Perry. New York: Columbia University Press. Reviewed by Todd Steven Burroughs Hubert Henry Harrison had clearly spent too much time on the inside. After years…

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BOOK REVIEW: “Same Old Devil”: In Time of National Turmoil, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Stephen Vittoria Recall A Nation Devoid of Justice

Murder, Incorporated: Empire, Genocide, Manifest Destiny. Book Three: Perfecting Tyranny. By Mumia Abu-Jamal and Stephen Vittoria. Foreword by Angela Y. Davis. San Francisco: Prison Radio, 385 pp., $27.   Reviewed by Todd Steven Burroughs THE ARC OF the radical universe is long, and Abu-Jamal and Vittoria are determined to extend it well into the 21st…

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BOOK REVIEW: MALCOLM THE TENTH? MORE LIKE 7 3/8ths: THE POWERFUL PAYNE PAINFULLY PETERS OUT BEFORE PUNTING

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X. Les Payne and Tamara Payne. New York: Liverlight. 537 pp., $35. Reviewed by Todd Steven Burroughs It must be great to be a renowned-but-recently-deceased Black writer, because your half-effort gets a full heaping of praise from the grave. In this case, history is not rhyming, but looping….

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