A
Report on a Gathering at Red Emma's
Book
Release for Letters
from Young Activists
By Rodney D. Foxworth, Jr.
|
Chesa Boudin, editor of Letters
from Young Activists
written by 44 young activists with diverse backgrounds,
ages 10-31, is also author of the book
The
Venezuelan Revolution 100 Questions-100 Answers
and translator of
the book Understanding the Venezuelan Revolution: Hugo
Chavez Talks to Marta Harnecker. He, along with Tiffany
King, Anna Rosario Kennedy and Najah Farley Samad,
activist authors, will be at Red
Emma's 800 Saint Paul St., Friday, 24 February 2006 7:00
PM - 9:00 PM -- Admission FREE
|
Last week, I attended an event held at Red
Emma's Bookstore in downtown Baltimore. ChickenBones editors
Amin Sharif and Rudy Lewis were in attendance as well. The event
highlighted Chesa Boudin, Yale graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and
co-editor of the collection, Letters
from Young Activists
(LFYA). Boudin was joined by fellow LFYA contributors Tiffany
King, a Delaware-based teacher and activist, and Najah Farley
Samad, Boudin's Yale classmate.
Boudin took the stage first. Boudin himself
is the result of rather contentious circumstances: he is the
white, middle-class, Ivy League educated son of parents
imprisoned for committing a politically motivated robbery along
with members of the Black Liberation Army. As a result of this
political act, three men were killed, and while Boudin's mother
has been released from prison on parole, his father will more
than likely die in prison.
Of the three young activists present, Boudin
was the most impressive, perhaps nurtured by his time spent on
the road promoting Letters
from Young Activists
, as well as his newest book, The Venezuelan Revolution: 100
Questions and 100 Answers. By this I mean he was the most
articulate and commanding of the three. The event didn't allow
for much revelation in regards to his vision as a young
activist, though, like so much of the young Left, he admitted to
being excited about Venezuela and the democratic revolutions
occurring throughout Latin America. As it were, Venezuela gives
him much hope for the future of the U.S.
Of course, our friend Amin Sharif provided
sparks, engaging Boudin in a bit of back and forth. In response
to Boudin's assertion that the world is indeed more violent and
inequitable than it was in the years of Civil Rights, Black
Power, and White Radicalism, Amin responded that, while it is
true that the preceding generation of activists made missteps
along the way, the same could be said many years from now in
regards to the present group of young activists. Boudin, like
me, only hopes that this is not to be the case.
While the conversations often devolved into
rather immature social criticisms, there were plenty of
captivating dialogues, especially on the topics of white
privilege and using the internet as an organizing tool. Indeed,
white privilege touched a nerve with all those in attendance,
and provided some of the more memorable moments of the night.
It was interesting to hear the insights of
such a diverse group, a more diverse group than I had
anticipated for such a small event. However, there seemed to be
little recognition of the organizational and disseminating
powers of the internet. Rudy and Amin attempted to push the
conversation on this, but as it were, it didn't get as far as it
could have gone. Of course, it was only a two-hour event.
Most disappointing, though, is that I left
away without a real sense of where young activists should direct
their energies, or what sort of program the activists themselves
were following. I think it was Boudin who opined that young
activists were left directionless. I walked away feeling this
way. A lot of sound rhetoric and arguments, but nothing
material. No real political thinking.
But again, this was only a two hour
"event." But one can be pleased by the diversity of
those present, which, as one of those in attendance noted, was
"beautiful." In the least, it gave me hope. We need to
have more talks like this, more forums. The youthful among us
are concerned citizens, and, it seems, we can communicate and
act in an intergenerational manner.
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Rodney D. Foxworth, Jr.
Associate Editor, LiP magazine
www.lipmagazine.org
cultural journalist & freelance writer
Ronald E. McNair Scholar
Ph.: (410) 978-0045
rdfoxworth@gmail.com
"I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the
color line I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas, where
smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out
of the caves of evening that swing between strong-limbed Earth
and the tracery of stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and
what soul I will, and they came all graciously with no scorn nor
condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the veil."
- W.E.B. Du Bois
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posted 1 March 2006
/ update 30 June 2008 |
