Know What Time It Is ft. Barbara Ransby

Voter suppression may be the only strategy left for the reactionaries, but, truth-be-told, voter suppression is as American as cherry pie, baked deep in the national DNA. Founded on war and conquest, land theft and forced removal, ethnic cleansing and genocide, kidnapping and a complex system of generational slavery based on African ancestry, the US is hardly innocent in spite of the noisy protestations of the White Nationalists. It’s a settler-colonial, racial capitalist system, and the founding documents are crystal clear: power will be exercised by and for the few. A fundamental revolutionary duty—and really the responsibility of anyone whose eyes are open—is to struggle to know what time it is, and so we explore this treacherous, ominous, and oddly hopeful moment with a dear friend and comrade Barbara Ransby, historian, award-winning author, professor of history, Black studies, and gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Om Podcasten

“Under the Tree” is a new podcast that focuses on freedom—a complex, layered, dynamic, and often contradictory idea—and takes you on a journey each week to fundamentally reimagine how we can bring freedom and liberation to life in relation to schools and schooling, equality and justice, and learning to live together in peace. Our podcast opens a crawl-space, a fugitive field and firmament where we can both explore our wildest freedom dreams, and organize for a liberating insurgency. "Under the Tree" is a seminar, and it runs the gamut from current events to the arts, from history lessons to scientific inquiries, and from essential readings to frequent guest speakers. We’re in the midst of the largest social uprising in US history—and what better time to dive headfirst into the wreckage, figuring out as we go how to support the rebellion, name it, and work together to realize its most radical possibilities—and to reach its farthest horizons?