IMC: Anthony, you're from the West Coast where you were initially politicized. Tell us about your personal and political background.

Anthony Ratcliff: Since I was 18 years old, I've developed politically. Initially, I was exposed to political ideas through rap music, the ideas of Malcolm X and black nationalism. But even in high school I was involved in the Black Student Union. When a student at a community college in northern California, I helped organize the Black Student Union.

Protest against police brutality was my first political interest. This really began when I was 20. At the end of a show in San Jose, there was a fight. The police responded with tear gas. The police stopped a friend and me. A cop grabbed my arm and pushed me on a car saying "We're gonna kill you nigger." The police claimed we were stealing stereos and resisting arrest. They said, "If you ever come to San Jose again, we'll kill you." After the event, we reported the police car number to the San Jose Police Department. They said "We don't have that car number."

When I was 21, I studied at a university in the San Francisco Bay Area where I was introduced to the politics of the Black Panther Party and Maoism, but not at a sophisticated Marxist level. Police brutality and basic issues of injustice moved me. I was active with the October 22nd Coalition, an anti-police brutality group which formed after the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles.

On April 29, 1992, I had a profound politicizing experience. X-Clan was performing at San Francisco State University. In the middle of the concert, they announced that people protest the acquittal of the police who beat Rodney King. We blocked the streets with 1,000, then marched. By the time we got to downtown San Francisco there were 5,000 to 10,000 of us. The next day there was a riot. However, I wasn't involved in that.

This really sparked my political, and intellectual, interests. I started to write an essay on the history of police brutality, an unfinished effort. I began to think more politically, but mainly with a focus on racial injustice. I hadn't made the class-race connection yet.

IMC: Where were you a university student?

AR: At California State University, Hayward. In 1993, I got involved with the African Student Alliance (A.S.A.). We mainly organized cultural events. but this was the time of Proposition 209 [The referendum that ended affirmative action in California higher education]. The A.S.A. linked with Asian and Mexican student groups. One of the authors of Proposition 209 was a professor at the Hayward campus. And we protested many times. The politics of the African Student Alliance was close to Pan-Africanism, which were my politics at the time.

IMC: What did you do after graduation?

AR: In 1996, I moved back to Los Angeles. I taught the fourth grade in the Compton City School District. And I got involved in my union, the National Education Association. I began to develop a class analysis through my involvement in the union. We threatened to strike for a pay increase. I was a participant, but not a core activist then. The composition of our union was 50 percent Latino, 40 percent African-American, and 10 percent Asian American. Some of my fellow unionists had the perspective of fighting over crumbs. But others had a class analysis.

In 1998, I got involved with the October 22nd Coalition again. The Coalition was influenced by Maoism. We organized protests around the treatment of Abner Louima by police in New York City. We also worked on local police brutality issues, such as the shooting of a homeless woman.

On September 11, 1998, there was a big protest in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal in Los Angeles. This was coordinated with the protest in Philadelphia. I was a participant in the L.A. demonstration. This was a time when I was exposed to the writings of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. I also began to read Marx when I met L.A. bohemians at the Fifth Street Dix, a local coffee and jazz house. There I began reading the Revolutionary Worker and got back into working on my essay on police brutality making links to class. A hip-hop show "Seditious Beats" was broadcast on KPFK. This radio station also aired Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" and interviews with Noam Chomsky. I also read the New Black Panther Party paper. All this furthered my development towards a radical left-wing ideology.

IMC: You are part African descent and part Colombian descent. Did Latino culture and politics influence you as well as black nationalist culture and politics?

AR: While the majority of my family members and the friends that I associated with as a youth were African-American, when I was younger I also hung out with Latinos in my 'hood. In addition, during second and third grade my mother placed me in an English/Spanish "dual immersion" bilingual class at my elementary school. She believed that would be the best way for me to learn more about Latino culture.

By the time I was 12, hip-hop culture had become an integral aspect of my life. Because hip-hop culture is a mixture of black and Latino urban sub-cultures, I immediately found solace in this new social construct. I was a breakdancer, graffiti writer, and DJ with a number of other black and Latino youths in my community. Although gang culture remained prevalent throughout California, between 1982 and 1985 I can remember witnessing hardcore gangbangers breakdancing and emceeing to resolve their conflicts. Sadly, by 1986, the introduction of crack cocaine and heavy artillery to the streets of California, and most inner-city areas for that matter, escalated street warfare. Nevertheless, me and many of my B-boy and B-girl comrades remained committed to hip-hop culture, while the streets around us deteriorated.

IMC: Do you see a link between hip-hop culture and punk?

I see a definite link between hip-hop and punk cultures. Hip-hop culture has had a politicizing influence in the African-American and Latino communities, just like punk culture has brought anarchist ideas to many white youth.

IMC: As a youth, did you participate in gang culture in L.A.?

AR: Not fully. Although I was very angry as a kid, I remained involved in hip-hop culture. I did associate with gangstas but I never joined a gang. Most of the anger I held was not focused toward other blacks or Latinos, but rather to whites. This was due to the fact that my father, who was of African descent, was murdered by a white supremacist. He was an actor and had the lead in a performance of "Jesus Christ Superstar" in the Bay Area. The idea of a black Jesus didn't sit well with this racist fanatic. I was angry for a long time. And it took me many years to realize that ALL whites weren't racists and some were actually my political allies.

IMC: So, you came to Baltimore to do graduate work, not necessarily activism?

AR: I came to Baltimore in August 1999 to do graduate work in history at Morgan State University.

IMC: What was your research?

AR: I looked at the relationship between the NAACP and the Communist Party in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I just completed my masters thesis.

IMC: How was the Morgan campus for political work?

AR: Well, there hasn't been a lot happening at Morgan while I've been here. It may have been different in other times.

IMC: What political involvements interested you in Baltimore?

AR: In March 2000, I got involved with the All Peoples Congress on police brutality issues. They organized a big protest at Pratt Street in response to the police killing of a black youth. I also had some contact with the UHURU Movement, which publishes the paper Burning Spear.

IMC: When did you begin work with the Black Radical Congress? The Baltimore Green Party?

AR: I began working with the Green Party around the time of the Presidential campaign of Ralph Nader. My mom had voted for Nader in 1996. We have always talked politics. In June 2000, there was a City Paper article about the Green Party. I went to the next meeting. Around the same time, the Black Radical Congress was moving beyond the rhetoric of black nationalism. Many B.R.C. members supported Nader, including the author-activist Manning Marable. The Black Radical Congress has worked to move the African-American movement away from the Democratic Party while developing a political analysis which integrates class and race perspectives.

IMC: Can you say more about the B.R.C.'s politics?

AR: Historically, many Marxist organizations have played to "race" saying that "class" is the key. But you can't take this position because even if "class" oppression is eliminated, you still have issues of "race" to deal with. Strategically, the B.R.C. attempts to build a united front politics against classism, racism, and sexism in a non-reductive manner. The B.R.C. has developed as an autonomous organization, but there have been struggles along the way.

IMC: Where has there been an attempt to develop a chapter of the Black Radical Congress in Baltimore?

AR: In the Spring of 2000, some graduate students began organizing at Morgan State University. We had some success into the fall, but most of us were graduate students from out of town. We didn't have extensive connections in the Baltimore communities. We had some contact with long-time union activist Fred Mason, a founder of the BRC. At Morgan, we found that students tend to be black nationalist. Socialist students are hard to find there.

IMC: Manning Marable has suggested that the strength of religion in the African-American community is an impediment to the development of a socialist consciousness. What do you think?

AR: True. Religion and socialism are like polar extremes in the African-American community. There are many who are poor who don't get involved in politics, except street actions. Then, there are so many involved in churches. Because church is so strong it's hard for some African-Americans to connect with socialism. And those African-Americans who are engaged in politics tend to be strongly tied to the Democratic Party. It's hard to break through.

So those of us at Morgan interested in B.R.C. work focused on campus work. We organized a Graduate Student Union, but kinda ran into a wall even here. Many at Morgan see politics only in terms of black versus white. They miss the class nature of poverty. So we need to get the Black Radical Congress idea off campus. But some of the graduate students, including myself, are leaving town soon.

IMC: A number of left socialists in Baltimore got involved in the Nader/LaDuke campaign. You were among those who also got involved in the Baltimore Green Party after the campaign. What motivated you?

AR: I thought the Green Party had potential to build an autonomous third party. Nader brought to the Greens a focus on class issues, even as he, and the Greens, were weak on issues of race. Nonetheless, activists of color like Winona LaDuke, Manning Marable, and Danny Glover actively supported the Nader campaign. There is much political complexity here. Even if the Greens success grew, there remains the strategic issue of how to balance work for reform with a larger, long-range radical project. And look at the success of the German Green Party. With more electoral success came more compromises. The German Greens have roots in the European peace movement and the New Left. Yet, the Party has recently supported military interventions, such as the NATO war against Yugoslavia.

IMC: Last year there was an exchange on the Baltimore Green Party listserv on the issues of reparations. In the opening plenary of the 2002 Socialist Scholars Conference, Manning Marable argued that the "demand for reparations must be central to the fight against racism" and that it must be "central to the socialist project" in the United States. Do you agree?

AR: I agree with Marable. I think the issue of reparations is one of the most important to be discussed publicly, and hopefully resolved. So far, the discussion has not gone well. Conservative pundits say blacks will get checks funded by people who had nothing to do with slavery so why should they pay for it. The demand for reparations is not one for individual reparations. Rather, the proposal is to appropriate money from those corporations which accumulated capital from slavery, such as tobacco, and to give the money to community institution building. It has never been publicly discussed that for over 200 years capitalism benefited from workers who were not paid for their work. There must be some sort of recognition of the fact that corporations like R.J. Reynolds benefited from the institution of slavery. This is the only way some of the existing inequality and the impoverishment of the African-American community can be addressed. African-Americans are mainly working class. People don't usually make the historical connection to economic exploitation.

IMC: The French sociologist Loic Wacquant points out that approximately 29 percent of the African-American community in the United States will spend sometime in prison (1). Will you comment on this situation?

AR: 50 percent of black males between the age of 18 and 25 are incarcerated or on probation. This is one of the legacies of slavery. Again, people do not usually connect the two phenomenon, but they are. Those African-Americans who are in jail are also those who are the "last hired, the first fired." While the socio-economic causes are ignored, elected officials want to build more jails. When we talk about solutions to the problem of black imprisonment, we must include as a demand that for reparations. The media and elected officials only talk about the symptoms, not the structural causes. Some honest discussion here would help. The whole issue of incarceration is scary. A whole generation of African-Americans will be lost. This effects family stability, and the general community.

IMC: You are off to the University of Massachusetts to work on a PhD. What are your plans?

AR: My main area of research has been the relationship between the NAACP and the Communist Party in the early 1950s. I would like to extend my research into the role of African-Americans in the Lincoln Brigades and the NAACP during the Popular Front. More generally, the history of radical movements looking at the links among class, community, democracy, and race interest me.

Reference:

(1) Loic Wacquant. "From Slavery to Mass Incarceration: Rethinking the Race Question in the U.S." New Left Review, No. 13, January, 2002. p43. www.newleftreview.org/NLR24703.shtml.