Cornell West, Jimmy Dore, and the Inevitability of Fred Hampton Leftism

Garrett from The Social Populist joins to discuss his latest Substack: Cornell West, Jimmy Dore, and the Inevitability of Fred Hampton Leftism. Before delving into his article we first discuss cultural nationalism as such, or what today gets discussed in terms of "identity politics".Show more

Cultural nationalism defines a people (e.g., Black, Latino, Jewish, LGB etc) in terms of shared beliefs or practices rather than in terms of a shared language and land (e.g., American, French, Ethiopian, Chinese etc). This leads to a cultural politics focused on vindicating, protecting or affirming, for example, "blackness" vis a vis "white supremacy".

Fred Hampton's Leftism, ironically, coincides with Dore's much more than it does with West's:

“We say primarily that the priority of this struggle is class…Those that don't admit to that are those that don't want to get involved in a revolution, because they know that as long as they're dealing with a race thing, they'll never be involved in a revolution."

Link to article: https://socialpopulist.substack.com/p/cornel-west-jimmy-dore-and-the-inevitability