DSA AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus

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DSA AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus (AFROSOC) is affiliated to Democratic Socialists of America. Afrosocialists Training is "generously funded" by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.

About

From the DSA AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus webpage:[1]

AFROSOC advocates for and builds power with DSA’s Black/POC membership and their communities. We pursue this work to help build a multiracial working-class base, the only viable strategy for securing a socialist future.
Through public and internal education and agitation, we aim to continue the legacy of the Black radical tradition, as well as the radical traditions of other oppressed minorities. Our goal is to act as a network that will support and develop non-white DSA members as leaders in the organization.
AFROSOC’s most recent efforts include:
Afrosocialists Training: Generously funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, the caucus hosted its first training in NYC for 45 DSA members nationwide in 2017. Members of DSA’s national training team led modules focused on socialist organizing, leadership development and campaign strategy.
A presentation for the students at NYC’s City as a School, “Walk It Like We Talk It: The Lifecycle of a Jordan Sneaker.” We facilitated a discussion about sneaker production under capitalism and worker co-ops.
Black History Month 2018: In celebration of Black History Month, AFROSOC assembled a public education program for fellow DSA members and the general public. The caucus put on one event per week. These included: a discussion on decolonization and immigration featuring Wendi Muse (Left POCket Project) and Kazembe Balagun (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung); a screening of the Lorraine Hansberry documentary Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart; and a panel on gentrification featuring tenant organizers Wanda Salaman, Anderson Fils-Aime, Robert Robinson, and Chris Colon.
Happy Hours: We created the caucus as a result of the first AFROSOC happy hour. We believed that such an event would combat the discomfort and frustration Black/POC members were facing in our majority-white organization. The caucus encourages all DSA’s chapters to organize their own AFROSOC happy hours. So far AFROSOC Happy hours have taken place in: New York City, Atlanta, LA, Boston and New Orleans.

Comrades

DSA AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus September 30, 2018:

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First NYC meeting! You're looking at 21 smiles and a baby. Beat that, capitalism. — with Bianca Cunningham, Jad Joseph, Apollon Favio, Jonathan Bailey, Jazz Hooks, Jawanza James Williams, Justin Charles, Jabari Brisport and Jose Sanchez.

"Organizing, Solidarity, and Electoral Politics post-November 3rd"

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Organizing, Solidarity, and Electoral Politics post-November 3rd: Where Does Our Muslim Generation Fit In?
Event by DSA Muslims, DSA AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus and UC Berkeley Muslim Student Association (Cal MSA) Online with Facebook Live Thursday, October 29, 2020.
In the past few months, our Muslim generation has grappled with a crippling pandemic, an ongoing struggle for racial justice, economic fallout not seen since the Great Depression, and a politics unwilling to serve the needs of working-class Muslims all around the country.
During the discussion, we would first talk about the current moment we are facing, with crises in all directions and hope seemingly out of reach. The discussion would then pivot to our generation, the “youth,” who has the most at stake and is watching as our futures are thrown away!
Towards the end of the moderated discussion, we would discuss organizing Muslims and communities at the grassroots level, running for office, the forces of power and corruption standing in opposition, and the tangible ways for Muslim students to engage in organizing and electoral politics without sacrificing their values!
This will be followed by a Q&A period with submitted questions and live audience participation! The moderators will be Samy Amkieh and Sana Siddiq.
Our invited guests for this conversation will be Ismahan Abdullahi, Aya Saed, Fatima Iqbal-Zubair, and Olivia Katbi Smith.

"DSA, BDS, and Palestine Solidarity"

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DSA, BDS, and Palestine Solidarity: A Panel Discussion Saturday, February 6th, 2021.

Palestine is not only a humanitarian issue, nor is it only a Palestinian issue. Palestine is a political issue with serious consequences at stake for both Palestinians and average US residents. As socialists, we recognize the interconnectedness of our struggles under capitalism. In solidarity with Palestinian civil society’s nonviolent struggle for equality, human rights, and self-determination, DSA adopted a resolution at our national convention in 2017 in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In 2019, DSA reaffirmed its commitment to the BDS movement by voting to establish a BDS and Palestine Solidarity national working group.
Join us on Saturday, 2/6 at 3pm ET/2pm CT/1pm MT/12pm PT for a discussion and Q&A with special guests, including Omar Barghouti, Marc Lamont Hill, Sumaya Awad, and Ajamu Amiri Dillahunt, to discuss the growing and vibrant global BDS Movement, Palestine solidarity, censorship, and how socialists can join the fight!
Moderated by Olivia Katbi Smith.
Co-sponsored by the BDS and Palestine Solidarity National Working Group, the National Political Education Committee, DSA Muslim Caucus, and the DSA AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus (AFROSOC).[2]

National Gathering

The DSA AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus National Gathering Planning Committee proposed a National gathering to take place June 7th-9th, 2019 in New Orleans, Louisiana at Loyola University.

The tentative planning committee was Bianca Cunningham NYC-DSA, Alyssa Pariah Portland-DSA, Kristian Hernandez NTX-DSA, Suzanne-Juliette Mobley New Orleans, Sumathy Kumar NYC-DSA, Maikiko JamesLA-DSA, Beth Huang -Boston-DSA, Marian Jones-NYC-DSA, Ashley Payne East Bay-DSA, Sasha Hammad-DSA national staff.[3]

Open Letter to Withhold Endorsement of Bernie Sanders

"Open Letter to DSA’s National Political Committee to Withhold Endorsement of Bernie Sanders Campaign" was a March 2019 Open Letter to NPC on Bernie & Race from DSA AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus.

Open Letter to DSA’s National Political Committee to Withhold Endorsement of Bernie Sanders Campaign

[Reparations is only a first step in appreciating the role of race in America]

The Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign encapsulated a lot of the anger in our society towards the political establishment, which left working people high and dry in the aftermath of the 2007 financial crash. To the relief of many Americans, Sanders focused on the growing income inequality in America and championed a program of Medicare for All, free public college and breaking up the banks, whose insatiable appetites for profit pushed America into a near full depression.

Black Americans were hit hardest because they were disproportionately targeted by lenders during the subprime mortgage scheme and the impact decimated much of the community’s wealth because it was stored almost exclusively in home equity as opposed to the diversity of wealth amongst whites with options such as capital gains. We are now living at a time where average black wealth trails by a whopping 13 times that of the average white family – the largest the wealth gap has been since records began in the 1980s. But, Bernie Sanders believes that the entrenched black poverty and vulnerability in America can be gradually addressed through a vibrant public investment in jobs creation programs.

Sanders was of course famously interrupted by Black Lives Matter supporters twice in 2015 over his views on race which included statements such as “Black lives matter, Hispanic lives matter, white lives matter.” While Sanders’ has since been more forthright and has said black lives matter without any equivocations, there is still a disconnect in his approach to economic issues often failing to comprehend how race and class are intertwined.

Yet, on the issue of reparations, which is a key agenda for black Americans, Sanders maintains that the topic of reparations would be too “divisive” for America and calls for government programs that would indirectly alleviate black poverty with jobs creation for lower income populations. Yet Sanders ignores how divisive his signature policy planks such as Medicaid for All and breaking up the banks are and does not abandon them for a lack of popularity.

Even in 2019, Sanders became defensive at a CNN town hall, when an audience member asked if he supported reparations. Sanders avoided uttering the word ‘reparations’ in his response, instead choosing to employ the smokescreen of, “what does that really mean?” While to some this may seem like a fair question or starting point for discussion, the dismissive nature of the response effectively shutdown the opportunity for meaningful conversation on this issue.

Considering he was pressed on this issue in 2016, it is unfortunate that in the past few years, Sanders has not taken time to inform himself on generations of work around reparations going back to the likes of Martin R. Delany in the mid-1850s. However, Black Americans understand too well what lack of reparations has meant for them. Booker T Washington’s promise to freed blacks of acceptance into society if they focused solely on economic emancipation was both unfounded and naive. Black people understand that true emancipation can only begin with acknowledgment that the institutions of the United States are so steeped in white supremacy that no combination of job creation and other race-neutral social programs alone could address the staggering pronouncement of abject inequality as Sanders proposes. Since these institutions have been designed to maintain white supremacy, it will require efforts on economic, political and social reparations to reasonably attempt to alleviate the enduring and concentrated disenfranchisement that Black Americans experience.

Sanders’ failure in addressing the unique experiences of Blacks in America is the norm for this nation, which is accustomed to Black exploitation and extraction of their labor, their communities and their very lives. It is this reality in today’s America that led to the formation of DSA's AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus as a safe space, where marginalized activists could inform the work of Democratic Socialists.

We would like to remind the organization as a whole that our existence as a caucus came about because of the DSA’s deficiencies on questions of race and racism. It is important to for all those considering an endorsement of Sanders that in 2017, DSA endorsed the Movement for Black Lives platform and BYP100’s Agenda to Build Black Futures, which are both explicitly pro-reparations and offer specific policies to that end, including (but not limited to):

  • Endorse or Support H.R.40
  • Free Lifetime Education
  • Cancellation of Student Debt
  • Higher Investment in HBCUs
  • Universal Basic Income
  • Restoration of Voting Rights to the Incarcerated

Should the organization move forward with an endorsement of the Sanders campaign, despite his failure to adopt specific policy stances to address matters of persisting racial injustice and despite his unwillingness to champion reparations to specifically address the experience of the descendants of African slaves, it will risk alienating not just members of color within the organization, but people of color in the communities in which the DSA works. We ask that the DSA withholds endorsement of the Bernie Sanders campaign for the presidency until Sanders finally acknowledges the validity of black demands for reparations in America. To fully debate this matter, we also ask for the National Political Committee to avoid endorsing the Sanders campaign at its scheduled emergency meeting on March 21st and to delay the official vote until the national convention this summer.

Signed,

References

  1. ↑ Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus (January 23, 2023)
  2. ↑ [1]
  3. ↑ [2]
  4. ↑ [3]
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