Socialism 2019

The brutal Islamophobia weaponized by politicians as part of the U.S.-led "war on terror" continues to impact Muslims across the U.S. and beyond. That anti-Muslim hate is becoming further entrenched with the growth of right-wing populism. This talk will examine how Islamophobia is used to bolster U.S. government aims and how we can oppose it.

A talk focused on the current and historic marginalization of Black, Latinx, and Muslim communities focused on the intersections of state surveillance, repression, mass incarceration and deportation.

The Marxist Center has emerged over the last few years. New and diffuse in political traditions and thoughts, what has united the Marxist Center is a commitment to basebuilding and revolutionary politics. However, the entirety of the Left seems to claim to be engaging in basebuilding. This talk offers a window into what the Marxist Centers' perspective on basebuilding is

The Black Lives Matter movement has helped expose widespread police brutality. It's also helped raise new debates about whether are necessary at all--and whether they have the potential to be a force for good, or need to be abolished.

Spain's social democratic Podemos party grew rapidly over the past several years to become one of the country's largest parties. In recent months, however, disagreements between leaders Pablo Iglesias and Íñigo Errejón raise questions about how the party will perform in upcoming elections. What is causing the crisis in Podemos, where is the party headed--and what are the lessons for activists in Spain and beyond?

“Latinx” (pronounced “La-teen-ex”) is the gender-neutral term that covers one of the largest and fastest growing minorities in the United States, accounting for 17 percent of the country. Over 58 million Americans belong to the category, including a sizable part of the country’s working class, both foreign and native-born. Their political empowerment is altering the balance of forces in a growing number of states. And yet Latinx barely figure in America’s ongoing conversation about race and ethnicity. Remarkably, the US census does not even have a racial category for “Latino.”

In this groundbreaking discussion, Ed Morales explains how Latinx political identities are tied to a long Latin American history of mestizaje—“mixedness” or “hybridity”—and that this border thinking is both a key to understanding bilingual, bicultural Latin cultures and politics and a challenge to America’s infamously black–white racial regime.

As a ethnic minority in Myanmar that is also Muslim, we will examine how the Rohingya's struggle has been overlooked or downplayed by international players and how global Islamophobia has affected perception of their struggle. We will examine the role China has played and look at where the Burmese "darling of democracy" Aung San Suu Kyi stands and how she's contributed to this genocide.

The recent re-election of Narendra Modi is a sign of the entrenchment of Hindu nationalism and the far-right in India, as Modi's BJP party continues to engage in a series of attacks against the rights of religious and political minorities. This talk looks at the rise of the Indian far right today, and what it will it take to push back against this growing threat.