I loved this episode! Dr. Kelley and Alle Sims brought many powerful additional dimensions to the Harlem in Moscow podcast, demonstrating once again the importance of contextual considerations. Host Michael Harriott did a great job! Saw you talk earlier this year at Edward Waters University.
There were Black American Ford workers that went over to set up a Ford factory. One person called a Black man the N word and Russia deported him. That was something that my people had never experienced.
I have a, fascination with Russia. Tsar Nicki had a ex slave as one of his 'Ethiopian guards'. There's not much information on him or how he got to Russia. Stalin enticed Americans to Russia. The crazy part is.... Remember the slave ships used to bring us over? America gave them slave ships as part of the lend-lease deal. Stalin had Americans in slavery in Russia and America did nothing about it.
Harriot's questions about whether communism could solve the problems of Black people, were stated as if communism was choosing Black people and applying itself to them, as opposed to Black people choosing it, as a tool they would make use of. Communism like any other tool human beings make use of, effectiveness is significantly dependent on the skill of the person using it. Harold Cruse in his book 'The Crisis Of The Black Intellectual ' wrote about the Black communist of Harlem during this same time period. He said ethnic empowerment followed a formular of cultural unity followed by economic development, which then affords them political influence and power. Black people instead went straight for political power. We have less sense of a uniform culture than ever existed, which has never been to any great degree. We have always been fractured culturally and have only become more so, since we were forcibly brought here. We haven't even embraced the holiday of Kwanzaa, which ironically would naturally conform to the formular Cruse spoke about. Significant numbers of Black people won' t even vote, let alone vote for a Democratic-Socialist. Black people don't show little any more interest in relatively contemporary history than, we do Afrocentric-ancient history.
