Delete Your Account Podcast

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!! 

On today's episode, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by longtime activist Amanda Bloom, who is recently back from Puerto Rico where she worked at la clínica Bantiox, a free health clinic and emergency room in the town of Toa Baja. Bloom discusses her decades of work supporting political prisoners from the Puerto Rican independence movement and her recent volunteer work in Puerto Rico following Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Bloom describes the devastation wrought on the people of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and why the United States government has left Puerto Ricans with little to no assistance, while at the same time undermining reconstruction efforts. We explore the legacy of United States’ colonization of Puerto Rico and the massive debt crisis that has been imposed on Puerto Rico against the will of its people. We also learn about grassroots initiatives to rebuild the country, and find out what people can do to help residents of Puerto Rico.You can follow Amanda Bloom and read her updates on Facebook. You can also read about her work in Puerto Rico at Poor Magazine. If you want to support groups in Puerto Rico doing great work, we recommend checking out la clínica Bantiox, Defend Puerto Rico, Resilient Power Puerto Rico, and Boricuá Organization for Ecological Agriculture.

A transcript for this episode is forthcoming. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!! 

On this episode, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Kaitlin Marone, an at-large councilmember on the New Orleans DSA Local Council and the organizer who thought up their wildly successful Gimme a Brake (Light) campaign. As you can maybe guess from the name, volunteer events are held to fix brake lights in poor communities for free, saving people from costly mechanic bills, traffic tickets, and interactions with cops which frequently destroy lives. Kaitlin is also co-author of the Gimme a Brake (Light) DIY Handbook, released by New Orleans DSA, which has been used by groups across the country to replicate this important work elsewhere. We ask for Kaitlin's thoughts on socialist organizing in Louisiana and the birth and growth of the New Orleans chapter of DSA. Kaitlin shares how she came up with the idea for the brake light repair clinics and describes how New Orleans DSA went about making this idea a reality. We discuss the importance of prolonged, no-strings-attached community service for building trust and building power, and the need for service work to truly reflect the desired priorities of those it claims to serve.

You can follow Kaitlin on twitter at @immerspaetlin. Follow @NewOrleansDSA for more on what that chapter is up to as well.

A transcript for this episode is forthcoming. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!! 

On today's episode, Kumars and returning guest host Mariame Kaba sit down with two movement lawyers at the forefront of the struggle against bail and pre-trial detention. Sharlyn Grace is a lawyer and co-founder of the Chicago Community Bond Fund. Marbre Stahly-Butts is a lawyer and organizer with Law for Black Lives and the Movement for Black Lives Policy Table, and was involved in the recent Black Mamas Bailout. Sharlyn and Marbre cover the basics of money bail in the US and the bail bond industry it sustains. They explain recent efforts on the state and local levels to win reforms to the current bail system, as well as the limitations of some legislative efforts that attempt to undermine the institution of money bail. We discuss the Bail Project, a national effort to bail people out of jail that is funded by big-money donors with unclear motivations and limited connections to the communities they claim to want to help. Mariame warns that this effort, while sounding nice, could starve the several dozen existing community bail funds of donations, despite the fact that these existing organizations are better positioned to build power and provide long-term support to those they serve.

You can follow Mariame on twitter as always at @prisonculture. Follow Sharlyn at @SharlynDGrace, and the Chicago Community Bond Fund at @ChiBondFund. Marbre isn't on twitter, but you can follow Law for Black Lives at @Law4BlackLives. If you want to support the Chicago Community Bond Fund, you can do so here, and you can support the National Bail Fund, the coalition behind the Black Mamas Bailout and similar efforts, here. We didn't have time to discuss it on the episode, but you should also check out @Appolition, a really awesome way to donate to the National Bail Fund.

A transcript for this episode is forthcoming. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!! 

On today's episode, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Blake Simons, an organizer and educator from Oakland, CA. Blake is the co-founder of People’s Breakfast Oakland and also co-hosts Hella Black Podcast which discusses societal issues through a radical Black lens. Blake shares with us how he became radicalized and first got involved in organizing as a student at UC Berkeley. He talks about his role in the Afrikan Black Coalition, a network of Black Student Unions on University of California campuses, and discusses successful campaigns to establish a black student resource center at UC Berkeley and to force the UC to divest from private prisons. Blake also talks about his uncle, Jalil Muntaqim, a member of the Black Panther Party and political prisoner for 45 years, and the impact he has had on Blake's organizing work. We also discuss Blake's current project, People's Breakfast Oakland, which provides meals, hygiene kits, and clothing to houseless people in Oakland, building off of the model championed by the Black Panthers decades ago. We discuss the horrific reality faced by houseless people, even in liberal strongholds like the bay area, and the importance of building alternative structures to support houseless people who will never be served by traditional institutions. We discuss the importance of meeting the material needs of those exploited and abandoned by the state as a necessary precondition to building revolutionary power.

You can follow Blake at @BlakeDontCrack. If you want to support the People's Breakfast in Oakland, reach out to Blake on twitter or donate here.

A transcript for this episode is forthcoming. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!! 

On today's episode, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Wendy Parker and Dan Feidt, two journalists who are part of Unicorn Riot, a decentralized, non-hierarchical media collective that started in 2015. Along with other members of the collective, Wendy and Dan have been reporting on leaked chat logs from a white supremacist organization involved in planning the deadly August "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville. After learning more about Unicorn Riot's unique approach to journalism, with stories produced collaboratively and horizontally and entirely through donations from supporters, Wendy and Dan explain how Unicorn Riot was able to get their hands on these private chat logs. These chat logs, comprised of hundreds of thousands of individual messages over months, show definitively that the white supremacist group in question has genocidal aims, despite their efforts to hide their goals from public scrutiny. The chat logs, in addition to revealing the vile politics and violent aims of many adherents of this right-wing ideology, revealed a high level of organization and strong commitment to building power. We learn about how Unicorn Riot's work has made its way into more mainstream outlets, and the effect that this and other similar work is having on the ability of these groups to function effectively. Dan and Wendy describe how members of the collective have been targeted by neo-nazis in retaliation for their work, and how they've been able to stay safe. Finally, we get their thoughts on how journalists can use reporting to fight against fascist organizing, without giving groups or individuals a platform that amplifies their evil message.

You can follow Unicorn Riot at @UR_Ninja. You can follow Dan on Twitter at @hongpong. You can't follow Wendy anywhere, because she deleted all her accounts (nice). Check out Unicorn Riot's searchable database of neo-nazi chat logs, and also check out the helpful anti-doxxing guide from Equality Labs mentioned on the episode.

A transcript for this episode is forthcoming. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!! 

On today's episode, Roqayah and Kumars are joined once again by guest-host extraordinaire Mariame Kaba (@prisonculture on twitter) for an amazing conversation with organizer Opal Tometi, a community organizer and writer who is one of co-founders of the Black Lives Matter Global Network. Opal also serves as the Executive Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI).

We learn about how Opal got involved in community organizing and specifically how she came to work at the intersection of immigrant justice and black liberation. Opal explains that one in five immigrants facing deportation is black and black immigrants are more likely to face criminal deportation than any other group. We discuss similarities and differences in the fight for immigrant justice under both Obama and Trump, and the additional difficulties African immigrants face under Trump's travel and refugee bans. We also explore how US imperialism, particularly in Africa, impacts black lives here and abroad.

In addition to discussing Opal's work with BAJI, we also learn about her role in building the Black Lives Matter movement and the Global Network that formed in the wake of the Ferguson, Missouri protests of 2014. Opal also shares what makes her hopeful, and discusses next steps for the world-wide fight for black liberation.

You can follow Opal on Twitter at @opalayo. Follow BAJI at @BAJItweet. Also, check out freedomcities.org, an organizing project building off successes of the sanctuary movement to restructure local communities to protect all marginalized people.

A transcript for this episode is forthcoming. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Today's episode is on sexual violence and organizing against it, so a major content warning for those listening. We spoke with Jes Skolnik, who has many years of experience organizing around sexual assault. Jes is currently the managing editor of Bandcamp Daily, a contributor to Pitchfork and many other publications, and a boardmember of Pure Joy Chicago, an arts venue and community space for all ages. They have long been involved in pragmatic activism that seeks to rectify social systemic imbalances in material ways for those who need it most, both within the labor movement and outside, as an anarcha-feminist abolitionist. We were also joined by returning guest Alex Press, former labor organizer and current assistant editor at Jacobin and PhD student in sociology at Northeastern University, who's been writing extensively on the Harvey Weinstein allegations and its lessons for responding to sexual abuse.

Jes tells us about their experience organizing against sexual violence and providing material support to victims, including through shelters and rape crisis hotlines, and how being a survivor of abuse impacted their approach to the work. We discuss the seemingly endless stream of new allegations against powerful men in Hollywood and beyond, and our guests give their thoughts on the current moment and whether the current media focus on sexual violence will translate into actual cultural or policy change. We talk about why victims of sexual violence often stay silent, and why victims, predominantly women, have to rely on informal whisper networks to stay safe from abusers. We discuss Alex's piece for Vox on how to formalize and weaponize the whisper network to thwart abuse, as well as her piece for Jacobin on the role that the labor movement could and should play in combatting sexual harassment and assault. Finally, referencing recent examples, we discuss the need for people in left organizations to face abusers in their midst head-on, and to stop making excuses for the bad behavior of their friends. Victims of sexual violence are tired of shouldering the burden of changing our society alone, it is time for everyone to step up.

You can follow Jes on Twitter at @modernistwitch. Follow Alex at @alexnpress.

A transcript for this episode is forthcoming. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

This week, Roqayah misses the interview so Kumars is joined once again by returning guest-host and fan-favorite Mariame Kaba. Mariame and Kumars speak with Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Executive Director of the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee and a leader in the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL). We learn about how Ash-Lee got involved in left movement-building in her home state of Tennessee before asking Ash-Lee about her work with M4BL. She explains the distinction between the Movement for Black Lives and Black Lives Matter, before discussing several areas of the M4BL policy platform in-depth. Ash-Lee gives several examples of how policies from the platform are being implemented in communities across the country. We learn about the Highlander Research and Education Center, which has promoted grassroots organizing in the U.S. South for the better part of a century. We also discuss differences between organizing in the North and the South, and the importance of southern organizing to building radical power. Finally, Ash-Lee tells us what makes her hopeful, and her thoughts on where we go from here.

You can follow Ash-Lee on Twitter at @hendersonaw0604. Follow Mariame at @prisonculture. Also, make sure to check out Ash-Lee's recent piece on the importance of organizing the South. You can support the important work of the Highlander Center here.

A transcript for this episode is forthcoming. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Roqayah and Kumars spend the intro talking about Kumars finding himself once again targeted by white nationalists for his Palestine solidarity activism. They also talk about UC Berkeley's nazi appreciation ("free speech") week and contrast UC Berkeley's efforts to protect the speech of genocidal racists with their complete lack of effort to protect the speech of leftists.

For the interview, Kumars and Roqayah are honored to welcome Kshama Sawant. Kshama is a proud socialist, member of Socialist Alternative, and a Seattle City Councilmember. She joins Kumars live in Oakland, while Roqayah is, as always, on the other side of the world in Sydney, Australia. After hearing a little about how Kshama originally became radicalized, we learn what defines Socialist Alternative as an organization and how she discovered Socialist Alternative was the right fit for her. Kshama shares with us how she was able to become the only open socialist on Seattle City Council, and how she has been able to effectively push her agenda without other socialists in government. We hear more about some of Kshama's major policy wins, including a $15 minimum wage and an income tax targeting high earners. We also ask Kshama about Bernie Sanders, hearing her thoughts and criticisms of his Presidential campaign, his role in shaping the Democratic agenda, and his foreign policy views. Finally, Kshama shares her thoughts on how people on the left can build an effective alternative to both fascism and neoliberalism.

You can follow Kshama on Twitter at @cmkshama. Check her out on the web and also support other socialists running for city council seats, including in Seattle and Minneapolis. 

A transcript for this episode is forthcoming. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Roqayah and Kumars are joined for an in-depth discussion of German politics and the upcoming federal elections in Germany by Julia Damphouse and Loren Balhorn direct from Berlin. Julia is a Canadian student in Berlin and a member of the German Left Party, die Linke. Loren is an American member of die Linke and writes about German politics for Jacobin. After we get our usual political origin stories from our guests, they give us an introduction to each of the 6 major political parties likely to enter the Bundestag or German parliament after the election on September 24th.

Julia and Loren begin with their own party, explaining the roots of the socialist Left Party both in East German socialism and in more recent discontent with the center-left’s neoliberal turn. They explain that the bulk of the disenchantment is a result of the Social Democratic Party’s (SPD) increasing abandonment from their working-class base, and we clear up any misconceptions about who is responsible for the death of Rosa Luxemburg. Almost imperceptibly to the right of today’s Social Democrats are Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), whose shrewd movement away from conservative positions has consolidated their power in the face of a feckless SPD.

Julia and Loren both weigh in on the Islamophobic, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which seems poised to become the first far-right party to enter the Bundestag in Germany’s postwar history, and discuss whether the US media is right to frame the AfD as a manifestation of “Trump-style” nationalism. Finally, Loren and Julia touch on the CDU’s possible coalition partners, the centrist Greens and the libertarian Free Democrats (FDP), and make our predictions about which potential alliance will govern Germany for the next four years.

You can read Loren’s writing on Jacobin and follow Julia on Twitter at @remarksist. Don’t miss Julia’s first appearance on the show as a guest cohost for our excellent interview with Kathleen Brown on the anti-G8 mobilization in Hamburg.

A transcript for this episode is forthcoming. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.