To Understand How Any Society

Media Mystifications Should Not Obfuscate A Simple, Perceivable Fact; Black Teenage Girls Do Not Create Poverty By Having Babies. Quite The Contrary, They Have Babies At Such A Young Age Precisely Because They Are Poor--because They Do Not Have The Opportunity To Acquire An Education, Because Meaningful, Well-paying Jobs And Creative Forms Of Recreation Are Not Accessible To Them ... Because Safe, Effective Forms Of Contraception Are Not Available To Them.

Not Only The Brothers On The Street But The Middle Class Brothers Are Also Identifying With The Gangster Rappers Because Of The Extent To Which This Music Circulates. It Becomes Possible For The - Not Only The Young Middle Class Men, But It Becomes Possible For Young Middle Class White Men And Young Men Of Other Racial Communities To Identify With The Misogyny Of Gangster Rap.

I Think In Black Communities Today We Need To Encourage A Lot More Cross Racial Organizing.

We Cannot Assume That People By Virtue Of The Fact That They Are Black Are Going To Associate Themselves With Progressive Political Struggles. We Need To Divest Ourselves The Kinds Of Strategies That Assume That Black Unity Black Political Unity Is Possible.

Now, If We Look At The Way In Which The Labor Movement Itself Has Evolved Over The Last Couple Of Decades, We See Increasing Numbers Of Black People Who Are In The Leadership Of The Labor Movement And This Is True Today.