Electoral Politics: The New Revolution | Chokwe Antar Lumumba

in recent weeks we have taken witness to

an energy which is surfacing around the

country an energy which brings into

focus a little small city like Jackson

Mississippi and our recent declaration

that we will be the most radical city on

the planet as one of the earlier

speakers took note of he said that this

is a declaration that some people find

great joy in and others trepidation and

so we visit this concept of what is the

most radical city on the planet it is

our objective in abandoning the norms of

how we’ve seen electoral politics over

time moving away from models where we

build great buildings and nice new

edifice –is only to move people from

one state of misery to the next so

instead of moving the people away it is

our objective to lift the people up and

we believe that Mississippi is the place

that this must happen because of some of

the most negative and and vile history

we’ve seen over time has occurred in

this space and so in essence we are

merging two things that have appeared to

be polar opposites over time the idea of

being a revolutionary and the idea of

the use of electoral politics so now we

consider at this time the idea of

order to begin this discussion and how

we come to this place at this time in

Jackson Mississippi we have to revisit a

different error I want to take you back

to August the summer of 1971 in a house

at 111 for

eighty-eight Lewis Street and an

organization called the Republic of new

Africa this is a conversation that many

people in the community know about but

it is rarely spoken of depending of your

age you may not be familiar this was an

organization which focus was about

bringing for a new system or a new

society one where people who had been

left on the fringes or who had been

exploited or or disenfranchised had

opportunity to seek independence for

themselves in large part we’re talking

about the african-american community

this organization sought through some

very revolutionary practices to seek the

opportunity for independence and they

were met with a political system at that

time in a a police organization that had

one black officer one black officer who

only had the ability to arrest black

people and in that summer of August of

1971 a home that was often filled with

men women and children was fired upon

where they brought in a tank that was

affectionately known as the Thompson

tank and they shot up the house only for

the men at that time that were inside

the home to return fire and

unfortunately it ended in a fatality so

what we’re looking at is a very

different time in the same place that we

are today where opportunities for people

to change a system and to have more

access to their government was not one

that was afforded to them and so we have

to truly have a context of history and

be prepared to address the

contradictions within ourselves in

to explore new alternatives and how we

can still pursue the ideals that we all

subscribe to the ideas that we all want

to enjoy the ideas that our government

serves us all and look at being

revolutionaries through the lens of

electoral politics often we’re fearful

of the word revolutionary or fearful of

the word radical and we have to ask the

question why oftentimes we fail to

really think of the definition of a

radical a radical is a person who seeks

change and if you look at the state of

your community if you look outside of

these walls and you see a need for

change then I would suggest that we all

need to be prepared to be as radical as

the circumstances dictate we should be

so how do we revolutionize a political

system how do we move from a day of old

like the rnai 11 to a new system of

governance that supports us all a new

opportunity to work collaboratively to

employ our collective genius and that is

just the mission that we are on today

because we feel that this place that has

been known for so much negativity over

time that it is only befitting that we

would be the authors of a new story then

not only we would correct the ills that

we see in Jackson Mississippi but that

we become a model for the world as we

see a world that is in more and more

flux each and every day this is a

necessary proposition I often think

about the great benefit that I had to

live in the house with my hero

the story of the RNA was often the

bedtime stories that I heard of and in

fact my parents moved us back to Jackson

Mississippi or moved us to Jackson

Mississippi in 1988 not because

we had grandparents here not because I

had aunts and uncles to welcome us but

because my parents believed in a

movement to change conditions for people

and they saw a necessary part of that

movement was offering their most

precious resource their children and so

they made a conscious decision to move

us to Jackson Mississippi and it was

honestly the best decision that they

ever made and so this work that we are

pursuing is as much for me about how we

create a new condition a new society as

it is keeping my parents alive I think

back to my father’s election where a

gentleman who was a part of this very

radical group the RNA was able to ascend

to the city’s highest office and what a

miraculous moment that was and he

reminded me that it was less a statement

about him and his accomplishment and

more a statement about where the people

of Jackson found themselves the bold

stands that people in this city were

prepared to take on and he said that the

selection of our leadership demonstrates

the readiness of the people a very

profound statement and as we look at the

culture of Jackson and look at the

culture that is taking place around the

world we have to ask ourselves what are

we ready for and what are we prepared to

do in order to get there I often like to

use this quote where I talk about this

task and where we are headed talk about

the fact that we see a world that there

seems to be a lack of integrity

everywhere we look and so we ask the

question what do you do when you find a

lack of integrity everywhere you look

you find it in yourself and you begin to

change the world from right where you’re

standing

who is the author of this wonderful

quote actually it’s Madam Secretary my

wife and I as my favorite show but I

found it to be such a profound question

and it brings into full context what our

challenges are and what we must do in

order to overcome them we have to be

prepared to have sincere disagreement

for sincere people should be able to

have sincere disagreement where we could

subscribe to the notion of unity debate

unity we can all arrive in the world and

or arrive into a Roman identify where we

see eye to eye and be prepared to debate

where we may have differences with the

objective of reaching greater unity at

the end of the day than we walked in

with for our goal in debate must not be

victory our goal in debate should be

progress and if we subscribe to this

process then we should be able to

overcome our differences so I am the

child of two activists and so I have a

propensity to speak to the larger things

in life like human rights and social

justice and self-determination but as I

quickly learned on the campaign trail

when you knock on a gentleman or a

lady’s door and you talk about these

great big ideas you’re confronted with a

brother or sister who says yeah yeah

that’s a good young brother but how are

you gonna fix that pothole in the middle

of my street and so that literally

becomes our mission meeting people where

they are and addressing the issues that

they confront day to day and finding

ways to use that in order to have

greater discussions on issues that

affect them it is literally the process

of government of connecting pothole to

pothole

and community to community so people in

Jackson Mississippi understand why

there’s a community that looks just like

theirs in Gary Indiana in Washington DC

in Brooklyn New York in Detroit Michigan

and then ultimately what we learn is

that the reason that you suffer from

your infrastructure woes is because none

of you controlled the process which

leads to a pothole being replaced in the

first place none of you have

self-determination and so we’re looking

at how we revolutionize the way we look

at electoral politics so that people

have more say-so so that we look at

collective genius understanding that one

person or one administration for that

matter

does not have all of the ideas for all

of the people and so we explore this

concept of what we call a dignity

economy an economy that doesn’t look to

rob Peter to pay Paul but instead allows

people to contribute to the process we

look at the idea of things like

participatory budgeting so people can

place value on on where they want their

money to go it is the shift in the

paradigm from finding value in what

you’re adding to adding what you find

value in we have two options we have the

options of economics for the people and

by the people or the option of economics

by a few people for themselves and so as

we explore what this looks like we must

see a city that looks to have healthy

citizens safe and affordable communities

thriving educational opportunities a

growing tax base with occupational

opportunities and a city that is

welcoming and open to visitors inviting

all people of goodwill

sincerity to join us one of the things

that I found very interesting in my

early time in this administration that

the only thing that people are more

interested in than potholes apparently

was the vegan challenge that I took on

at the start of my administration in

fact the most challenging part of that

challenge was explaining to my wife how

Pamela Anderson knew me and decided to

challenge me to this vegan challenge but

as we look at being the most radical

City we truly have to account for where

what we are putting in our bodies and

what we are building and what we are

encouraging as a society and the

greatest challenge of taking on a vegan

lifestyle I have learned it’s not just

the mere decision to eat healthy but the

access that we see in our communities

the fact that we are living in food

deserts where as one of our earlier

presenters recognized it is the

antithesis of our culture to choose a

vegan lifestyle we had the opportunity

to travel not only the city of Jackson

but around the state as we were going

through this 30-day challenge and people

as you stated that you were not eating

any products from an animal whether it

be the meat or any dairy products people

looked at us like unicorns something

that they had never seen so it is

imperative that we raise the

conversation the discussion about what

we’re building in our community and how

we start to see access to fresh fruits

this is one of the most critical

discussions as we look at some of the

traditional models of how we have built

cities over time and the idea and the

concept of gentrification

which is a war against the people moving

people from one state of misery to the

next and so we have to look at

opportunities and how we build

communities where people of different

backgrounds different financial means

can live amongst each other in safety

and in harmony and though this appears

to be a daunting task I think that it is

incumbent upon us that we present this

new picture to the world thriving

educational opportunities in recent

weeks we’ve taken note of the fact that

Jackson provides some of the lowest wage

jobs yet we are a college town that

produces some of the highest wage skill

sets so Jackson like many other cities

is a city that doesn’t have a problem

producing wealth but has a problem

maintaining wealth therefore our

greatest exports as a city are our money

and our talent and we have to look at

the solutions of how we reverse course

and create career pathways right here in

Jackson well we make our city into a

classroom for the young people that pass

through our city limits each day seeking

educational opportunities so they see a

space where they can take up take root

and be a part of what we are building a

growing tak space with those

occupational opportunities that I just

spoke of looking at creative ways and

how we will create the economic

opportunities that we seek exploring

things that actually take root right

here in Jackson Mississippi or in

Mississippi through the context of

people like fannie lou hamer who looked

at how we look at cooperative businesses

businesses that are owned by the

community where people can not only

decide how their labor but what the

fruits of their labor will be and at

this time we are inviting people as the

country is looking at us all peep

of goodwill and sincerity to join us as

we not only look at how we repair

Jackson but how we build a new society

for we see Jackson as a city which is

pregnant with possibilities and as I use

this analogy I speak about what

pregnancy is and in fact I ask that all

of the women in the audience and the

women who will see this that they

forgive me for I am a man who has never

experienced pregnancy of course but as I

understand it pregnancy is a difficult

time and a difficult struggle where you

go through the labor pains only to

witness the most beautiful thing at the

end of the day and so we see a city that

is prepared to go through a number of

struggles a number of battles but what

we are looking forward to truly is a

beautiful image and it is consistent

with the ideas that Martin Luther King

began to understand in his final days

Martin had a conversation with Harry

Belafonte where he said listen Harry I

begin I believe we’re going to win this

integration struggle but I’m beginning

to wonder I’m beginning to wonder if

we’re not integrating into a burning

house he began to see how the system was

exploiting people and exploiting labor

and exploiting opportunities and he

wanted to know if it was worth

integrating into a house that looked

like that and so he realized that it was

Electoral Politics: The New Revolution | Chokwe Antar Lumumba | TEDxMillsapsCollege