Wednesday, December 16th at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT
Join the Democratic Socialists of America Fund, Dissent magazine, The New Press, DSA’s Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus (AFROSOC), Haymarket Books, and DSA’s Democratic Socialist Labor Commission (DSLC) for the next installment in an ongoing series of virtual discussions based on the book We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style. This month’s discussion will focus on Darrick Hamilton’s chapter on “A Three-Legged Stool for Racial and Economic Justice.”
Amidst an unprecedented pandemic and in the face of a racist police state, we must chart a new course. In We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style, leading thinkers and activists come together to examine the democratic socialist history of the United States and how we might achieve a world where every human being is guaranteed a life of safety, health, dignity, and even joy, free from the commodification of basic necessities. The chapters of this timely and urgent volume tackle climate change, foreign policy, socialist governance, reparations, and more.
Our event on December 16th will be framed by the chapter’s discussion of racial and economic justice. What is the democratic socialist case for reparations? How do we fight for it and other economic components of racial justice?
Darrick Hamilton is the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy, and the founding director of the Institute for the Study of Race, Stratification and Political Economy at The New School. He is also a member of the Marguerite Casey Foundation in partnership with the Group Health Foundation’s inaugural class of Freedom Scholars. He has served as a member of the economic committee of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force and testified before the Joint Economic Committee on policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic-induced health and economic crises.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes and speaks on Black politics, social movements, and racial inequality in the United States. She is author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, which won the Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book in 2016. She is also editor of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, which won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBQT nonfiction in 2018. Her third book, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, was a finalist for a National Book Award for nonfiction, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for History.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. He works on ethics and social/political philosophy, with an emphasis on figures and questions from anti-colonial thought and the Black Radical Tradition.
Symone Baptiste is a Director & Writer/Producer based in Los Angeles. Her short directorial debut, Sixteen Thousand Dollars, tackled reparations through a socialist lens. The film, backed by the DSA Fund, won the Jury Award for Best Narrative Short at the 2020 Bushwick Film Festival, Programmers’ Best Narrative Short at the 2020 Pan African Film Festival & Best Comedy Short at the 2020 Queens (NY) World Film Festival. Symone is a member of the DSA AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color caucus and is an advocate for marginalized voices.
Bianca Cunningham is a director of the Democratic Socialists of America Fund Board. She is a staff organizer at Labor Notes and a co-founder of the AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus of DSA.
This event could go as late as 9:30pm Eastern.
