Guerrilla History - Anniversary Livestream w/ Gerald Horne

Episode Date: November 7, 2021

For this special episode of Guerrilla History, we celebrated our one year anniversary by hosting a livestream featuring returning guest and fan favorite, Dr. Gerald Horne!  We covered a lot in this conversation, from Texas and the historical roots of US fascism, the need for Cuban solidarity, recent books and movies that have caught Dr. Horne's eye, and more!  If you haven't already heard our previous episode with him on The Counterrevolution of 1776, be sure to scroll back in your podcast feed and check that out too, as some of these themes are connected. Gerald Horne is the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston.  His research interests are unbelievably varied, encompassing biographies of W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson, to The Haitian Revolution, to Hollywood in the '30s-'50s, to Jazz and Justice.  Be sure to check out his bibliography, you're certain to find something that interests you! Guerrilla History is the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history, and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present.  If you have any questions or guest/topic suggestions, email them to us at [e-mail]. Your hosts are immunobiologist Henry Hakamaki, Professor Adnan Husain, historian and Director of the School of Religion at Queens University, and Revolutionary Left Radio's Breht O'Shea.   Follow us on social media!  Our podcast can be found on twitter @guerrilla_pod, and can be supported on patreon at https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory.  Your contributions will make the show possible to continue and succeed! To follow the hosts, Henry can be found on twitter @huck1995, and also has a patreon to help support himself through the pandemic where he breaks down science and public health research and news at https://www.patreon.com/huck1995.  Adnan can be followed on twitter @adnanahusain, and also runs The Majlis Podcast, which can be found at https://anchor.fm/the-majlis, and the Muslim Societies-Global Perspectives group at Queens University, https://www.facebook.com/MSGPQU/.   Breht is the host of Revolutionary Left Radio, which can be followed on twitter @RevLeftRadio and cohost of The Red Menace Podcast, which can be followed on twitter @Red_Menace_Pod.  Follow and support these shows on patreon, and find them at https://www.revolutionaryleftradio.com/.     Thanks to Ryan Hakamaki, who designed and created the podcast's artwork, and Kevin MacLeod, who creates royalty-free music.

You don't remember Den Bamboo? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. And welcome to Gorilla History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm your host, Henry Huckimacki, and unfortunately, I'm only joined by one of my co-host today as our friend and co-hosts, Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio, and the Red Menace podcast had a very, very last minute family emergency come up and is unfortunately not going to.

to be able to make it today. I know it's disappointing for everyone, but absolutely family comes first that goes without saying. But I am joined by my co-hosts, co-host Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queens University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing? I'm doing well. It's great to be with you, Henry, and to celebrate one year of guerrilla history. It's fantastic. Absolutely. Absolutely. As you mentioned, This is a special episode as it is our one-year anniversary, it is our first live stream, and, of course, the most special part of all. We're joined by the inimitable Dr. Gerald Horn, fan favorite.

We had an episode with Dr. Horn in the past, and he's graciously agreed to come on with us to talk with us during our one-year anniversary live stream. So, hello, Dr. Gerald Horn. How are you doing today? Oh, it's all good, and it's an honor, a privilege, and a pleasure to be here with you. Absolutely. It's 1 a.m. here in Kazan, Russia, but I could not be happier to be here with you at this time. Adnan, why don't I let you take us into the conversation and we'll get things underway? Well, there's so many topics to speak with you about Dr. Horn because of the great sweep of your work, historical study.

But I understand that you're working currently on an interesting book that may help us unlock and understand the history of American fascism and that it's on Texas. So I wanted to know actually a little bit about that and to ask you why you decided to mess with Texas. Well, for better for worse, I'm residing in Texas. I'm speaking from Texas right now. And since living here, I've been fascinated. As you may know, with regard to the January 6th, 2021 insurrection, there were more folks there from Texas than any other state, even though they had to travel further than, say, people from Virginia, for example. Interesting. You may know that with regard to the efforts to circumscribe, strength,

women's reproductive rights, Texas has been in the vanguard with this new vigilante law that authorizes any citizen, perhaps even non-citizen, maybe even the Kazan Russia, to file a lawsuit against women seeking an abortion and recovering a bounty of $10,000 plus attorney's fees. You may know that Texas has been in the vanguard also of a task acts on so-called critical race theory, which supposedly is being taught to elementary school children, which is false, but it's just the latest rather scare tactic used by the right wing to stampede countless numbers of working class and middle class Euro-American voters, which obviously worked in the elections that just took place on Tuesday.

And it's just the latest in a number of scare tactics. It's really a hallmark not only of Texas politics, but U.S. politics. You may recall previous hallmarks like scares about busing, that is to say, putting children in school buses to cross jurisdictional lines to get education, scare tactics about law and order. which was raising the specter of the so-called black criminal, scare tactics about affirmative action, that is to say, efforts to fight back against racism and sexism in particular. And in all of these demagogic movements, Texas has been in the vanguard.

So I thought it would be quite useful to explore why it is that Texas, which right now is the second largest state in the United States, behind California with a population of approximately 29 to 30 million, why is it that Texas has been in the vanguard of ultra-rightous movements tending towards fascism? Well, the story begins in the 19th century when Texas was part of Mexico and a number of settlements from the United States moved into Texas territory, which actually became a particular hallmark of a kind of settler colonialism in North America. And what happens is that when Mexico abolishes slavery, enslavement of Africans in 1829 under a president of African descent, speaking of Vincent de Guerrero, the Texas settlers led by Stephen F. Austin, from whom Austin, Texas is named,

Sam Houston, for whom Houston, Texas is named, where I'm now sitting, they decide to revolt. In some ways, Texas is a replica of the founding of the United States, 1776, where you may recall that real estate speculators, like George Washington, objected to London seeking to prevent settlers along the eastern seaboard of North America from moving further west, coming into conflict with the indigenous population, which you would call the First Nations populations, taking their land, waging war, causing London to expend blood and treasure to protect the real estate interests of George Washington. when London tried to keep these settlers from moving west, they revolted. And of course, they wanted to extend slavery as well, because you employ free labor to work the land to produce wealth. So in many ways, Texas was a mini me of the United States of America. Texas was an independent country between 1836 and 1845, but alas, it could not withstand the pressure placed upon it not only by abolitionists in London, but also by revolutionary Haiti, which had revolted against a French slavery and colonialism, succeeding in gaining independence in 1804, and then becomes a leader in terms of the anti-slavery struggle. So Texas becomes an independent country.

During Texas' independence, it becomes a leader of the African slave trade, the Texas flag, could be found off the shores of Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, for example. A signal reason why there are so many black people in Cuba today is not least because of Texas and slavers, If you look at your map, you'll see that it's a relatively straight shot by sea from Galveston, Texas on the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba by sea. But with the pressure, Texas decides to enter the United States of America.

It was done illegally because it should have been done by treaty per the U.S. Constitution, but it was not. And then what happens then is that Texas unleashes a reign of terror, against the indigenous population. The term extermination is used promiscuously by the settlers in Texas. And therein you begin to see why I entitled my study, the counter-revolution of 1836, Texas slavery, Jim Crow, and the roots of U.S. fascism.

Because when you begin to talk about 20th century fascism, you not only talk about enslavement, which was not only a hallmark of Texas, but a hallmark of a good deal of the United States of America, you not only talk about these slave labor camps, which was a hallmark of the United States, particularly involving people of African descent,

you also have to talk about extermination, which was the intentional and conscious policy of the settlers. Indeed, one of the reasons why Texas decided it to secede from the United States during the U.S. Civil War in 1861 was because Texas wanted to exterminate the First Nations. The so-called moderates in the United States just said they should be put on reservations. They should leave their land and go to these enclosed spaces. That was too much to bear, and so Texas seceded. And during the U.S. Civil War, Texas was probably the key southern state. And that was true for a number of reasons. Number

one, New Orleans, which had been a key port for the slave owners, was taken over by the Lincoln government as early as 1862. And so you had slave owners when Louisiana began to move there enslaved Africans into Texas. So they had a larger enslaved population to work the land. And then recall as well that France had taken over Mexico during the U.S. Civil War. And France was at least informally in lead with the slave owners. Tampico, this Mexican port on the coast, became a key port for the slave owners with goods being smuggled or taken from Tampico to Galveston and then dispersed throughout the slave south. After the Civil War ends, we see that Texas is the least damaged of all of the slave states. And besides, its population of enslaved had grown

because of what happened in New Orleans as aforementioned. In any case, since I know we only have a short period of time, and this is a very long story, the book might wind up being 700 pages or more, let me conclude by talking about this. In the United States right now, despite all of the hoopla about 1776 and this great leap forward for humanity, and the roots of democracy, etc., somehow, despite all of that, I'm afraid to say that there is a very real danger of fascism arising in this country. This not only comes from myself, it even comes from certain liberals, believe it or not, although they haven't revised their view of history to help to account for that,

but at least I'll pat them on the back for seeing the real dangers, January 6th, 2021, just being a premonition of what's to follow. We not only saw what happened with regard to the demigogy of this past Tuesday's elections, we see that workers at electoral polls are being threatened and are quitting their jobs in droves. We see that people on school boards are being threatened, supposedly, because they're teaching critical race theory. but actually what they're trying to do is teach the accurate history of this country, which many object to because it conflicts with the founding mythology of this country. And there is a very real danger of fascism.

So one of my recommendations to our audience is that I think it would be in the best interest of and behoove the people of Canada in particular, because I understand that guerrilla history has deep and strong roots in Canada to pay very close and careful attention to this trend because Canada will not be unaffected is the United States turns to fascism. It would be in your self-interest to be in solidarity with the people of the United States. And indeed, I would like to propose that at some point, just as in the 1980s, we had CISPUS, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, which was very useful in helping to beat back Terra in El Salvador. We now need a committee in solidarity with the

people of the United States that would involve round-the-clock pickets of the U.S. Council in Toronto, for example, the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. It would involve petition campaigns. It would involve perhaps perhaps boycotts of certain corporations that are funding the right wing, like AT&T, for example. I don't know if it's even in Canada, but it certainly funds the right wing. We need some sort of solidarity movement because the problem in this country is that there is a mass basis for fascist, just like there was a mass basis for settler colonialism, there was a mass basis for enslavement, there was a mass basis for extermination. of First Nations. And once again, not only should the people of Canada pay careful and close

attention, I would also say the people of Russian may should pay careful and close attention because I'll conclude on this point. In the recent book by Washington Post writers Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, they point out that just nine months ago, President Trump, then President Trump, in order to save his administration, which was about to evacuate the White House, cooked up the idea of launching a preemptive strike against China so he could declare a state of emergency. Now, of course, China would not have accepted that preemptive strike with equanimity. Undoubtedly, it would have struck back. It could have led to a nuclear holocaust, meaning the extinction of all humanity. That's the kind of thinking we have in

Washington, D.C. right now. So once again, Canada cannot be indifferent to these trends. They're happening next door. There, you are living next door to a house that's on fire. And unless you help to put out that fire, your house too may be consumed. That's a really important set of warnings based on this history. I'm really interested and there's a question that came in on the YouTube chat where we've got over 60 people watching asking, did fascism ever leave the U.S.? And you pointed out that, you know, that there was mass support for settler colonialism, just as you're seeing now the potential of mass support for fascism, it brings up a question.

that I've often thought about historically, you know, why did the U.S. not turn fascist in, say, the 1930s? And was it because it had already a whole system of racial apartheid in the Jim Crow South and essentially in the way in which settlement was taking place in the, you know, with the great migration to, you know, the industrial north, you know, with the quarantining of black people in those neighborhoods that it didn't need fascism because it had settler colonialism. I'm just wondering what you think about that problem. Well, that's a fair point. And I would also say there are a number of scholars right now

who are doing comparative histories between fascist Europe and the United States and pointing to the fact that many of the leading fascists, they were seeking to emulate the United States. That's right. That is to say when Berlin, began to move east and seize the land, particularly Poland, Russia, et cetera, and create so-called living space, Lieben, I think the German term is. They explicitly said that they were pursuing the model of development that they aspired in North America with the United States,

which, as I said, was moving west, creating, quote, living space, unquote, for European migrants and a population eventually defined as white. I've already mentioned the slave labor camps in which this country was founded. And I would also say that one of the things that strikes me that is perhaps the most dangerous of all, once again, is the mass base of support. I did a book some years ago on,

a leader of U.S. fascism by the name of Lawrence Dennis. He was defined in the United States as a so-called light-skinned Negro. He passed for white, as they say here, and became the intellectual leader of U.S. fascism. He met with Mussolini. He met with the top Nazis in Berlin. And he, too, put forward the point that what he was espousing in North America was parallel to what was going on in Europe in the 1930s in the first half of the 1940s. I think also that as we begin to rewrite and revision the history of the United States and history of North America, we should revise the idea of U.S. imperialism being initiated in 1898 with the war against the tottering Spanish Empire, leading to the United States, seizing

Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, that we should take seriously that there were first nations that were wiped out, liquidated. It was a form of imperialism, and certainly the attacks on Mexico could be seen as an early stage of imperialism. I should also say that as the United States was seizing a good deal of Mexican land, perhaps half of Mexico's land. And would have seized more. That was certainly envisioned, but for various reasons I can go into, it was not able to do so. At the same time, you had so-called anti-slavery forces in the North who thought it would be a grand idea to seize Canadian territory. So the warholmes, yes. I think one of the many reasons because you've had this relationship with London over the decades is because many in

Canada saw London and the ability of London to pose troops in Canada as sort of a shield of preventing incursions across the border by the U.S. military. So the question is well taken with regard to a kind of continuity, with regard to U.S. Fascism. Whatever the case, we're staring down the barrel of the gun as we speak, which means, that the entire world is staring down the barrel of that gun. I want to just bring up a book briefly that I think the listeners would be interested in. Like you said, the Nazis took a lot of inspiration from the United States,

and this took several different forms. They took inspiration and things that the United States did, but also their legal scholars. And Germany had a lot of legal scholars, took a lot of inspiration from U.S. legal code. And there's an excellent book called Hitler's American Model, The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Whitman, who's a professor of comparative and foreign law at Yale,

that looks at the Nuremberg laws that the Nazis put in place in the 1930s, which we're looking at things like anti-miscegenation laws, citizenship laws. And those laws were inextricably linked to previously past laws in the United States, they almost took some of the laws word for word, or at least some of the statutes within the laws, word for word from the United States. Very interesting book. I am not a lawyer, but despite the fact that, you know, it's an entire book written about comparative legal studies, very accessible, something that I recommend to the listeners. If you have anything that you

want to say about that, Dr. Horn, feel free. But I want to turn us back to Texas for a second because now turning to another book, I had seen in the end of policing by Alex Vitale, Professor Alex Vital, that there was mention of the Texas Rangers. So fortunately, since we were talking about it, I was able to find what I had read, and I'll read just a brief excerpt from that. And then I'm curious as to your, when you're looking back at the roots of fascism within Texas, Texas, how the Texas Rangers have played into that in your study. So Vital writes, the U.S. had its own domestic version of colonial policing, the Texas Rangers. Initially, a loose band of irregulars. The Rangers were hired to protect the interests of newly arriving white colonists,

first under the Mexican government, later under an independent Republic of Texas, and finally as part of the state of Texas. Their main work was the hunt down native populations accused of attacking white settlers, as well as investigating crimes like cattle rustling. The Rangers also frequently acted as vigilantes on behalf of whites in disputes with the Spanish and Mexican populations. For more than a century, they were a major force for white colonial expansion, pushing out Mexicans through violence, intimidation, and political interference. In some cases, whites would raid cattle from Mexican ranches, and then when Mexican vicaros

tried to take them back, calling the Rangers to retrieve their stolen property, Mexicans and Native Americans who resisted Ranger authority could be killed, beaten, arrested, or intimidated. Mike Cox describes this as nothing short of an extermination campaign in which almost the entire indigenous population was killed or driven out of their territory. There's more to this section, but I found this to be very interesting. Of course, this was not the first time that I had seen the Texas Rangers referred to as basically de facto colonial policing. but it does drive the point home. And while I was reading this, when I read the book, it made me think about the glorification of the Texas Rangers and how Texas really as a state identifies itself with that ranger mentality. And I think that there's something to be said about that

when examining the roots of fascism or fascist thinking within the state of Texas. Dr. Horne, anything you want to say about that? A few points. One, the Texas regions were akin to to death squads. I mentioned El Salvador before. That's when the term deaf squads, at least in the United States, became popularized, irregular, is they're called euphemistically, who search and destroy in El Salvador political dissidents in Mexico, search and destroy indigenous populations. And one of the points I'd like to stress about Texas is that one of the reasons why the repression has been so profound in so significant to the point where we can credibly discuss Texas as a kind of model for the roots of an emerging U.S. fascism is because the resistance was so profound. First of all,

some of the most militant and ferocious First Nations groupings were in Texas. I'm speaking of the Comanches, for example, the lords of the plains, as they were called. I'm speaking Speaking of the Apaches, for example, particularly in West Texas, bordering New Mexico. I'm speaking also of the fact that you may recall that under President Andrew Jackson, late 1820s, early 1830s, you had the mass expulsion of the Cherokees and other so-called civilized tribes. They were called civilized because they countenanced enslavement of Africans. The Cherokees, of course, not only enslaved Africans, but they really tried to assimilate. They adopted the dress of the settlers. They became Christians.

They developed an alphabet for their language, and the Cherokee newspapers were still being used by scholars, including myself. They still had to go. they still were expelled, along with the Choctaw, the Crete, the Chickasaw, and the people we refer to as the Seminoles, who had a de facto merger with enslaved Africans. So they were supposed to go to what was called Indian territory, just north of Texas, which is now Oklahoma. That was supposed to be a Bantustan for these groups, for as long as the rivers shall flow and the grass shall grow. So the downside for the Texas settlers was that for the longest, you had the indigenous groupings in Indian territory who were providing sanctuary and refuge, at least that was the accusation, for the Comanches who were attacking Texas to the south. And then you had Mexico. Texas is the only slave state that's bordered by a foreign country.

Mexico is noted abolished slavery in 1829. Thousands, thousands of enslaved Africans fled into Mexico during the period from 1829 until slavery was abolished in 1865. This was one of the reasons, one of the many reasons why the United States wanted to continue seizing Mexican territory. In fact, in my book, I speculate that as the United States had this plan of continually moving south, seizing land, that theoretically they were going to go to the tip of South America, Teira de Fuigo, to extend this slavery enterprise. Fortunately, that did not take place. But certainly, Texas, once again, is a kind of

a model for the worst kind of settler colonialism, the worst kind of repression, and an extremity with regard to enslavement and genocide that boggles the imagination. Well, I know that we want to turn to other topics, but we did have another question come in from one of our patrons, actually. It's an excellent question. This comes in from Gabe. So we'll ask this first before we transition topics. He asks, does Dr. Horn have any insights on the relationship that oil and oil corporations have had and continue to have to fascist organizations domestically and abroad with Texas being a center of oil protection? This seems relevant. And this is something that I had first thought of when we saw your email come

back that your next book was going to be about Texas and fascism. So I'm glad that Gabe asked this because it was something that was on my mind as well. Yes. You may recall that a few decades after the end of the Civil War in 1865, oil was uncovered in Texas. Immediately and instantaneously, you had the development of some of the richest people on planet Earth. You may want to look up H.L. Hunt, for example. Look up Clint Merchinson, for example. They were close comrades of Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who was the symbol of the anti-communist purges of the late 1940s and 1950s. They were major funders of ultra-rightous publications of various sorts.

These are Texas oilmen, by the way, in case I neglected, to mention that. And also, they own considerable land in Mexico and indeed helped to fund the right wing in Mexico. They also were heavily invested in Texas politics. There is still a lot to be uncovered, I'm afraid to say, with regard to the relationships, political relationships of these Texas oil men to prominent Texas politicians, not only those you immediately think of, such as Lyndon Baines Johnson, the Bush family, of course, the Bush family, George H.W. Bush, with roots in Connecticut. His close relative, Prescott Bush was, of course, very close to fascism in Europe. He moves to West Texas and becomes an oil man. and then bequeaths what fortune he develops to his son, George W. Bush, the president between 2000-2008.

And certainly, as I look at the political climate today, and particularly in light of the COP meeting in Glasgow, where there is a lot of discussion about a transition from the fossil fuel economy to renewables, At the same time, contradictoryly, there are news reports about the price of a barrel of oil going to three figures, despite the fact that supposedly these fossil fuels are being transitioned or being, we're moving away from them. You still have investment banks and finance capital investing heavily, despite their pledges in Glasgow, into this interest. And so it seems to me that there's going to be a battle royal as we go forward, almost like science fiction, where the oil moguls will continue to insist on fossil fuels and burning fossil fuels and running, willing to run the risk that planet Earth will be destroyed because they have this insatiable hunger for. profit and filthy lucre. This is something, perhaps not out of a science fiction novel. This is something we're facing today. And once again, let me issue a thing, reissue a thing, which is not just we here in Texas who will suffer to the extent that these mad men continue to accrue power. The entire planet will suffer. So therefore, it's in your interest as well.

well, to keep a close eye on these trends and to be ever in protest against U.S. imperialism. You had mentioned in your previous remarks about the wider importance and resonance of Texas in the Western Hemisphere and beyond a little bit about Cuba, and it reminds us that the Cuban revolution has been, you know, under attack, this island nation that threw off colonialism under, you know, the era of Jose Marti, you know, struggled against Spanish colonialism, managed to become an independent country and really establish their independence with the Cuban revolution on behalf of all Cuban citizens. And that revolution has been under attack since that day.

And we're, of course, witnessing very troubled times for Cuba currently. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about the current situation and also about this important question of solidarity and the history of solidarity with Cuba, why it was important, has been important, and continues to be absolutely crucial for us to express solidarity. Well, we're facing a deadline. November 15th is not only when Cuba opens up to tourism and to visitors after an extended lockdown because of the pandemic. It's also when dissident forces who demonstrated in July 2021 on the island a planned significant protests. Now, we know that the Biden administration has decided in many ways to follow the Trump administration with regard to policy towards Cuba. There have been a number of very adventurous proposals coming out of Washington, up to and including helping to have a sort of renegade Internet that the dissident forces can rely upon. that will be transported by balloons.

Now, I guess they don't expect the Cuban Air Force to not shoot down these balloons, but it could be some sort of provocation, for example, and particularly in light of the fact that Mr. Biden is echoing Mr. Trump on Cuba, it makes it all very difficult and problematic. And I should also mention a reason why this could take place, because,

If you look at the history of the struggle against Jim Crow, U.S. apartheid, what happens is that after World War II, the United States makes an agonizing retreat from the more egregious aspects of U.S. apartheid, not least because of the existence of a socialist camp, which was making appeals to African and Caribbean nations surging to independence, Washington thought that it would lose that race unless it eased up on the horrors of Jim Crow. Interestingly enough, as I point out in my book on Kenya, when you began to have African students coming to Jim Crow in the United States, the State Department proposed that these African students be given a button to place on their lapels so that they could enter restaurants and hotels that we indigenous black North Americans could not enter. So the tradeoff for that deal was to throw overboard the most far-reaching, progressive, socialist-minded, black leaders, including the great Paul Robson and those who tried to walk

in his footsteps. Paul Robson, for those who may not be familiar, was the tallest tree in our forest, multilingual, a singer, actor, political activist, radical, very close to the U.S. Communist Party. And so since that time, there has been difficulty, to put it mildly, to raise up radical ideas, not only in the black community, I mean radical left ideas, not impossible, of course, but that has handicapped the ability to restrain the more adventurous tendencies in Washington, such as those that are now being proposed to choke off socialist Cuba. And I raised this question as well because a few days ago I was invited by a black fraternity

here in the United States that will remain nameless to speak. And I thought we were going to speak about how badly black people are doing the United States, how we should take our campaign to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, how we should talk about, as I did a moment ago, helping to spark the formation of committees and solidarity with our struggle. But instead, all they wanted to do was talk about Cuba, not in a positive way, but in a negative way.

And I was taken aback. It reminded me about how much work we have to do and also how dangerous this situation is that we face right now. So I know I've already talked about one solidarity movement in regard to the people of the United States, but certainly in that context, we should not ignore solidarity with socialist Cuba because of its shining symbolic importance as a beacon in the hemisphere. That is to say it's no accident that you have folks

like Lula de Silva, the once and future president of Brazil, who spends considerable time in Havana. It's no accident that when you had the Grenadian Revolution in the Caribbean, 1979 to 1983, they were very close to the Cuban Revolution. It's no accident that we cannot begin to talk about the liberation of Southern Africa without talking about Cuban troops, defeating the apartheid army on the battlefield of northern Namibia, southern Angola setting the stage not only for Nabimian independence in 1990, but South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994. You cannot begin to talk about health care

and Africa and the Caribbean, particularly Haiti, without talking about Cuban medics and Cuban doctors. And so I think it's very important that we stand in strict solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, because once again, I think it's also in our interest as well. I have a follow-up. So you talked about being invited to talk at this black fraternity, and many of the individuals wanting to say negative things about Cuba. And I find that to be very interesting as well, because as you mentioned, Cuban solidarity was generally at its strongest in the black community in the United States.

We had individuals like Kwame Ture, at the time Stokely Carmichael, being quoted as saying that Fidel was one of the blackest men in the Americas. Walter Rodney highlighted this in the groundings with my brothers. He even devoted, I think, a paragraph to this sentiment from Kwame Ture. Fidel also had his famous meeting in Harlem, where there was throngs of the African American community, lining the streets to celebrate Fidel coming to Harlem. where he met with, among others, Malcolm X. I'm curious, though, why you think that there is this change in perception. And of course, you know, there was always black individuals who had, you know, negative opinions of Cuba.

And of course, there's many black individuals today that have positive opinions of Cuba. But I find it interesting because the media surrounding Cuba has been overwhelmingly negative since 1959. That hasn't changed, but yet I think that the community, at least from what I've seen, is a little bit more split on the issue now than it had been at any time previously looking through some of the old news reports that I was looking through, where the sense of solidarity was much stronger within mainstream culture, as opposed to just on the fringes of the black radical tradition today. I'm curious of why you think that is. And if you agree with me at all. Oh, yeah, sure. Well, certainly what you said was accurate with regard to Kwame Torei, with regard

to the Black Panther Party, which found sanctuary in Cuba when they were under the gun, literally and figuratively here in the United States, with regard to other black left wing and militant forces. However, I think that what's happening? happening right now in the United States with this backsliding to the right is affecting all sectors. And with regard to the black community, not speaking as a whole, but certain sectors like these fraternity brothers I was speaking to. And I would not like to have your audience go away thinking that they may be a representative of the entire sentiment. We have to be sure not to generalize these things, of course.

Exactly. Of course. But it's certainly, it was certainly a very troubling and disturbing sign. And I put this in the context of a proliferating anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States of America, which has not left the black community unaffected. Oftentimes, it takes the form of anti-Latino sentiment, which can easily morph into anti-Cuba sentiment because, of course, in cities on the west coast, black and Mexican-American communities oftentimes are living cheek by jow. And as well, you have this ideological attack on black Americans. What I mean is there's this right-wing black conservative author by name Thomas Sol, S-O-W-E-L, who writes book,

after book, after book, attacking black Americans. And his basic thesis is, why are you black Americans? Why are you always talking about racism? You got Colin Powell. He came here from Jamaica as an immigrant. He almost became president. He became Secretary of State. You had Barack Obama senior.

He comes to Hawaii. He fathers a black president. You have Kamala Harris, who's, father was Jamaican and she becomes vice president. So obviously the problem is with you folks. You know, you need to pull up your socks, as they say in Jamaica. You need to get your act together. Stop whining and complaining about police killings and police brutality and racism and blah, blah, blah, and instead put your shoulders to the wheel. And so what this is meant is that it's helped to fuel

a certain kind of anti-immigrant sentiment, I'm afraid to say. And I should also say the flip side of that is that the U.S. ruling class has particular animosity towards the black community in general and towards the descendants of enslaved Africans in North America in particular because it's the latter group that's been fighting them toe-to-toe for centuries and in league with their antagonists and lead with Native Americans and lead with Britain and league with Japan, Soviet Union, Mexico, et cetera. And so there's a

particular animosity to that group, to this group, and I have to say I'm part of that group, the descendants of the enslaved of North America. And so what this has then led to is that black nationalism, which oftentimes has played a progressive role over the decades, now you're having offshoots such as black American nationalism, which turns its back on black immigrant populations, for example. So it's, once again, I would not like to overemphasize these these trends, but they are trends. And as social scientists, we should not ignore trends that deliver unsettling news. Well, I think that's a very important point because we have seen the emergence, at least online and in certain venues of the ADOS movement, African descendants

of slaves, taking a very critical view about how to achieve representation. reparations and who would, you know, be eligible for reparations and trying to distinguish on the basis of history, who are the, which is the community that both suffered, you know, Jim Crow, slavery, and so on in America, and as a result, who deserves the reparations compared to, you know, Caribbean and other recent immigrants from Africa, who were distinguished. You pointed out that like during the 50s and 60s, that there were efforts during the Cold War as part of U.S. propaganda to cover over, you know, the problems of the, you know, oppression of black people in Jim Crow South did try and distinguish a little bit between, you know, African students coming over. Somebody like Malcolm X saw the difference as one that, you know, rationalized and justified the importance. of black nationalism here because his way of interpreting it was that you know these folks have

independent free countries and so when they come to the united states they come with the status of people who have their own nation and that's our problem is that we don't have our own nation or our own homeland that was during his you know black nationalist uh nation of islam sort of uh a face so there is some tensions here i mean as a historian it's important and interesting to see see, you know, how this all functions. And perhaps it gets to, I mean, I was thinking when Henry was mentioning, you know, the follow-up question about the black fraternity's attitudes towards Cuba, it seemed like perhaps it was significant that it was a fraternity and that, you know, this is a kind of institution that's meant to advance careers and incorporation and corporate capitalist

culture and it relates to a question that came up on YouTube here. Anne Lee asks that she'd like to get your take on the concept of the PMC, the professional managerial class, I guess whether that's a relevant way of thinking. But I think more specifically perhaps is how that plays a role in certain aspects of corporate diversity culture, because we had a second question from someone in the YouTube chat here that asked about these advancing racial equity training materials and the work of Ibrahim Kendi and Ijeoma Olua. And if you've heard of them and if you have any opinions on them, and I think that kind of body of material.

Well, I think that there has been a sharp counter reaction to this idea of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Interestingly enough, when the right wing in Tuesday's elections made significant steps forward, these programs were an issue. They're seen as a subset wrongly, in my opinion, of critical race theory. They're seen as an aspect of what's called wokeness, which is also defined ambiguously, if not at all,

but certainly is viewed with skepticism. And in many ways, it's a counterreaction to anti-racism. That is to say that there are those who feel that there is a zero-sum game at play. To the extent that you have black professors, for example, That means that a professor who is not black does not get higher. And I have to say that also from some of our friends on the left, there is a critique of these programs. But I would like to think that the critique on the left is not because they're in favor of cisgender males of European descent dominating the society, which has been the case in North America.

for centuries. I assume that they're not in favor of that kind of status quo. I assume that their point is that if you think that diversity, quad diversity gets us to the goal line, you're being misleading. But I think they should say that because in the black community, when they hear these people on the left complaining about wokeness, complaining about diversity, they see them as the same as the right wing. And, you know, I understand why they do. Because if you don't clarify, it's understandable why people see that as basically a sort of right-wing attack in left-wing guys, a sheep in wolf's clothing or a wolf in sheep's clothing. With regard to the so-called professional managerial elite, I guess I'm sort of old school in the sense that I see the ruling class as being disproportionately comprised of those who control the means of production. That is to say, those like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and Elon Musk and Warren Buffett and Stephen Schreveld. Swartzman and Jamie Diamond, the banking industry, Brian Moynihan, a Bank of America. And then, of course, this professional managerial elite are one or two or more rungs beneath them.

I mean, they're basically responding to the puppeteers. So perhaps there's also this thesis here in the United States. States that I'll take a moment to interrogate, which is that people have a hard time understanding how and why it is that in West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the United States of America, that's 96, 97 percent Euro America, that Donald J. Trump won that state by 40 points in November 2020. And so many of our friends on the left, they come up with this theory that these Euro-Americans vote for the right because they've been abandoned by the Democratic Party. Now, there may be something to that, but I think it tends to

ignore the history of settler colonialism, which was basically a class collaborationist project. If you look at my book on the 16th century, for example, if you look at the first nucleus of settler colonialism of what is now North Carolina in the 1580s, it was a classic. That is to say, poor Europeans from the British archipelago crossing the Atlantic sponsored by the 1% in London with the goal in mind of routing the First Nations, taking their land and opening up the land for enslavement of Africans. So if you don't understand class collaboration, it'll be difficult not only for you to understand West Virginia, it'll be difficult for you to understand what happened in Louisiana in 1991, when a leader of the Nazi party, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, the terrorists,

David Duke, got 55 percent of the Euro-American vote. And so to say that these Euro-Americans voted for a Nazi because they were disappointed with the Democratic Party, when in turn, the black community voted 95 or 99 percent against the Republican Party. It makes the people who vote against the right seem like chumps. It makes people who vote, then it leaves the impression that if you vote for the Nazis, that you're a righteous rebel. I mean, this makes no sense. This is crazy. And so one of the problems we face in this country is this kind of ideological confusion, which I'm afraid to say, just like I suggested that it's afflicted some elements within the black community. It's also afflicted, I'm afraid to say,

some elements within the broader left as well. Well, I'm going to transition us towards the end here because we're just, we're running out of time now. I do want to point out that there was more questions in the YouTube chat that we didn't have time for, but I do want to thank everybody for participating in our inaugural live stream. It was very successful. We had a good amount of people watching live on YouTube, and I know that we're going to have

a lot of people listen to this both on the YouTube as well as. on our podcast feed afterwards. But we had a lot of topics that we were thinking about covering during this. We didn't have time for many of them. Some of the topics that we were thinking about talking about were the CIA in Africa, which is a topic of interest for mine. It's something that I've talked about with several guests on the David Feldman show, where there's just a plug for that other show.

Adnan and I have frequent segments on that show. we both have interviewed you, Dr. Horn, on the David Feldman show. So if guerrilla history listeners are listening to this and are looking for, you know, twice a week, seven hour long show to fill up some space in their schedule, check out the David Feldman show. We were thinking about talking about how the U.S. was dealing with China in the 1970s and historical parallels for that. We were thinking about wading into the left patriotism debate. We don't have time for any of that, unfortunately, perhaps in a future context. hopefully in a future conversation, we'll be able to tackle some of them. So for the last few

minutes, we'll talk about something that won't take us very long, Dr. Horn, and that is recent books and films that you have found of interest to you. Can you just take us through some of the recent things that you've been looking at, both reading and watching that perhaps the listeners should be watching or reading themselves or perhaps things that they should absolutely avoid? How do you want to go with this? Well, first of all, Attica, it's playing, if I can mention this, is playing on Showtime here in the United States. It's by the leading documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson. He did the documentary on Miles Davis, for example.

It's a sweeping interrogation of perhaps the largest slave, excuse me, prison rebellion in the United States. In Attica, upstate New York, circa 1971, a very well researched. very well put together, et cetera, Attica, A-T-T-I-C-A. Also, exterminate all the brutes by the leading filmmaker of Haitian descent, Raul-P-E-C-K, R-A-O-U-L-P-E-C-K. It played on HBO Max. It's a sweeping, multi-part interrogation of settler colonialism, going back hundreds of years and actually trying to make the point we were touching upon a few months ago, trying to make the connection between settler colonialism and how it

unfolded in North America with the Holocaust. That's one of the points that each tries to make. Roa Peck, of course, also did Lumumba, the docudrama about the founder of Modern Congo. The young Karl Marx is another one of his works. I Am Not Your Negro about James Baldwin. a very, very excellent filmmaker. Now, there is this trend that I'm happy to say that I'm a part of of trying to revision the history of the United States along some lines that I sketched a few moments ago and included within that trend

would be the former UC Berkeley professor Tyler Stovall, S-T-O-V-A-L, and his book, White Freedom, which looks at the last 250 years through the lens of suggesting that all of these so-called bourgeois democratic revolutions that many Marxists are always celebrating, they were basically apartheid formations because, surprise, surprise, they were not intended to include people like my ancestors. Likewise, the late Jamaican philosopher, Charles Mills, who, I'm not mistaken, went to graduate school in Canada, his book in 1997, the racial contract, is in that same vein. I would also include in this litany, it's what's really outraged the right wing in this country, which is the

1619 project of the New York Times, which draws upon my work, but not as much as I would like, but it was done in such a way as to really inflame many, including Donald J. Trump. Trump, who appointed a 1776 commission to rebut the 1619 project. And of course, now there is a 1776 political action committee that sponsoring what could only be reasonably called the reign of terror against school board members from the Atlantic to the Pacific who are seeking to inject accurate and adequate retelling of the true story of the United States of America. So that's just, oh, I should also mention a couple of new books. I'm reading them now.

I haven't finished. But born in blackness by Howard French, it's a sweeping history of the Atlantic rural, as it's called, from the 15th century up until the end of World War II, trying to put the exploitation of slave labor. And then the super profits coming from Jim Crow. at the center. I haven't finished the book, but I've read 50 pages and so far so good. And likewise, I've read about 75 pages of the book, Liberty is Sweet by Woody Holton, who is the son of the late desegregationist governor of Virginia, Linwood Holton, and the brother-in-law of Senator Tim

Kane of Virginia. And it's a progressive look at 1776. It's a materialist look at 1776. putting forward, which should be obvious, that the key question for 7076 was, how do you get the Native Americans off the land, people? I mean, obviously. And so I think it's almost, I hope this doesn't hurt his book sales that I'm saying that I've read 75 pages

and think that it's worth reading. But I see it, I would like to see it, as part of the advance, since I began with a sort of pessimistic, talking about the rise of fascism, let us end on a more upbeat note, which is that I would like to see Holton's book as part of the ideological advance that progressive ideas are making even with those who have connections to the ruling class. I would be remiss to not mention that we have Patreon exclusive episodes on both Exterminate All the Brutes as well as

the 1776 commission, so listeners, if you're looking for some bonus content from us and would like to help support the show monetarily, because it is not free to run. We do have a non-Brette and I do a review of Exterminate All the Brutes. Surprise, surprise, we all recommend that you watch it, but we do have some nitpicks about parts of it. It was a very fun conversation to have. And we also had a dunking contest on 1736. Exactly. A very fun indictment of the 1776 Commission. That was a very fun conversation as well. So listeners, if you would like to support the show, go to our Patreon. Patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. You can find both of those conversations on there. Dr. Horn, what should the listeners be looking for coming up from you next as we close out this conversation? Well, as I said, my Texas book will be out next year.

But I did a piece for the nation, the left-leaning New York Weekly, a sort of review essay on Paul Williams, San Diego, his book, his classic capitalism and slavery. And I tried to stuff a lot into that review essay. And so I would recommend it only was published a few weeks ago. So that. And also, I just did this. a discourse similar to the one we're having on this podcast that can also be found on YouTube called Last Dope Intellectual.

And I think we went for an hour and a half or two hours. So many of the similar subjects, we dealt quite a bit with Africa. Of course, we dealt with that China question, one of my favorite topics to discuss, et cetera. And another shout out for Last Dope intellectual. I'm friends and comrades with Dr. CBS. In fact, we were just talking yesterday about your upcoming appearance on this show. Definitely check that out, everyone on YouTube, The Last Dope Intellectual, and Dr. CBS, I'll announce this publicly that way. It's easier to hold her to it, has said that she'd come on guerrilla history to talk about both of her upcoming works,

one of which is a compilation of radical black women's writings. And the other one is tentatively titled, at least I believe it's tentatively titled, Black Scare, Red Scare. And that one I am really, really looking forward to. So she's already agreed to come on the show for both of those upcoming books when they will be coming out so that we can talk about them with her. But definitely listeners, if you haven't listened to the last dope intellectual, do so. Adnan, let's wrap up this conversation. How can the listeners find you and your other podcast? Well, listeners first should make sure to go back and listen to the Counter Revolution of 1776 podcast with our guest today, who spoke about his work then.

Professor Gerald Horn, we're so delighted that you could come back and talk about your current work and upcoming book on Texas. We're really looking forward to it. maybe we'll have to have a part two when that comes out to really go into it. But people who want to follow my work can follow me on Twitter at Adnan-A-Husain, H-U-S-A-I-N. And if you're interested in the Middle East, Islamic World, Muslim Diasporic histories, you can follow my other podcast, The M-A-J-L-I-S. It's on all the platforms. Excellent. I highly recommend that as well.

Listeners, I'll just announce that our next full episode of guerrilla history is going to be an episode with comrade Luna from Vietnam about the Battle of Dien Ben-Fu, so keep your eyes peeled for that. It should be out in about a week. As for me, you can follow me on Twitter at Huck-1995, H-U-C-K-1-995, and follow Gorilla-H-R-H-R-H-R-R-I-L-L-A-U-Score pod. We've got a lot of interesting stuff coming up, so definitely check that out. Like I said, if you'd like to support the show, you can find us on Patreon at patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. So that's it for our inaugural live stream and our one year anniversary of guerrilla history's

existence. So thank you, everybody, for tuning in if you're on YouTube, joining us for the live stream. Thank you if you're watching this after it came out. Thank you if you're listening to the podcast. And thank you if you've shared or shared our episodes with any comrades of yours or if you've just gotten anything out of our show. We really appreciate everything that everybody has done. It wouldn't have been possible without your support.

So, listeners, until next time, solidarity. I'm going to be. ...you know, ...andah, ... ... ... ...

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