#1- Launch

The last dope intellectual blog is officially here. It’s launching on my absolute favorite day—my birthday! This is significant because, in my 35th year, I want to be more “writerly.” By this I mean I want to use writing across several genres to express myself, work through ideas, share my thoughts, analyze what’s going on around me, and shoot the shit. Though I write all the time, I still struggle with identifying as a writer. My hope is that blogging will make that identification easier.

For over a year, podcasting served as a key medium for knowledge production and dissemination; however, during this input season of life, I’m drawn to a more contemplative and introspective method of sharing ideas. The writings on my blog will include short scholarly essays, book reviews, lists, excerpts from things I’m currently working on, posts reflecting what I’m thinking about at the moment, and whatever else feels relevant. Sometimes I’ll include audio and video, but this will be a supplement to, not a replacement for, regular writing. Y’all can expect a post at least every Monday, but hopefully more frequently as my schedule permits. I don’t have a specific audience in mind other than those who enjoy reading stuff by and about Radical Black folks.

Returning back to my birthday for a moment (a day I share with the rapper Special Ed and Janet Jackson by the way), I feel honored to have been born during Taurus season, which includes radicals like Vladimir I. Lenin, Doxey Wilkerson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Angelo Herndon, Hubert Harrison, Karl Marx, John Brown, Sylvia Wynter, General Agostino Sandino, Malcolm X, Lorraine Hansberry, Yuri Kochiyama, and Ho Chi Minh. It is for this reason I speak about Taurus season as revolutionary season. The work I strive to create in academia and in organizations like the Black Alliance for Peace is in the spirit of these guerilla scholars, organic intellectuals, and freedom fighters. My hope is that the last dope intellectual blog will contribute in some small way to making Radical Black knowledge production readily accessible to folks who’ll find it useful and affirming—not least those whose realities are constantly invalidated and maligned in a world that prioritizes death-dealing scholarship.

Especially in these times, it’s not easy to stand against war and for durable peace; against imperialism and (neo-)colonialism and for People(s)-Centered Human Rights; or against antiblack racial oppression and for Black/African liberation. It’s not easy to tell the truth about intra-racial class antagonisms and the utter failure of the Black petit bourgeoise—the misleadership class—to deliver any modicum of material security or stability to the overwhelming majority of Black folks. And it’s certainly not easy to do this kind of principled work while belonging to particular institutions whose ideas about diversity do not readily accommodate anti-capitalism. Radical Black writing is not vital because it’s easy, but rather because it provides succor for persons who organize for a better world,  and the breadcrumbs for future generations (climate catastrophe notwithstanding) searching for tools with which to struggle against structures of domination.

So, I look forward to stepping into my new role as a blogger, writing consistently, and engaging with those of you who are interested in connecting with the last dope intellectual in this iteration. Let’s get it!