Yongho Kim

Category: race

  • Superstructures and subaltern practices in the ANC and the SCLC

    Fredom Movements Essay 1
    February 23, 2005

    Andrew Ancheta
    Yongho Kim

    In his controversial book Black Marxism, Cedric Robinson argues that “the roots of Western racism took hold in European civilization well before the dawn of capitalism” (Kelley, 2000: 12). In a differing approach from George Frederickson to the overlaps of racism and capitalism in the occupation of America, Robinson points out that “… the tendency of European civilization through capitslim was thus not to homogenize but to differentiate – to exaggerate regional subcultural, and dialectical differences into “tacial” ones. (Robinson 26) The dilemma observed by the two intellectuals permeates the literature on the two movements that arose as a response to both instances of the system of white supremacy, as is expressed in King’s undecided observation: “Most of us are not capitalists, we’re just potential capitalists” (Garrow, 41)

    This paper examines the different social forces – racial makeup of the workforce, ideaological relationship to communism and forms of radical socialism, use of the church, and its position in the post-WW2 international political area – that surrounded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the African National Congress, and how these differences are manifested through strategies adopted by Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King and their advisors.
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  • class notes. freedom movements

    february 21, 2005
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  • after watching Malcolm X so when chicano activists…

    after watching Malcolm X

    so, when chicano activists say “we did not cross the border, the border crossed us”, are they borrowing from Malcolm X’s saying in the NYC church, “we did not come to Plymouth, Plymouth came to us”?

    the “did you know brother minister what so and so did before going to heaven? to eat” was sharp.

  • notes, freedom movements

    feb 14 notes
    freedom movements
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  • The Black Body as a feared Necessity in the Post-Industrial Urban Economy

    response paper to the Sixth Annual African American Studies Conference at Macalester College

    Freedom Movements
    February 16, 2005
    Yongho Kim

    In her keynote speech Democracy and Captivity, Joy Ann James argues that the prison-state constitutes the institution through which neoslave narratives are embodied in the United States. A neoslave narrative, James argues, is “a recycling of the fear/hate of the black body”, but in her use of the prefix neo, I think, she is also pointing out parallel structures of doxa regarding the slave and its relationship to the master in american public discourse, both during pre-“emancipation” and in the current times.

    As Rose Brewer and Nancy A. Heitzeg, and several other speakers/participants argue throughout the conference, the prison-state weaves itself closely together with the prison industrial complex, an economic structure aimed at squeezing a critical surplus required for sustained economic growth. With the rise of the post-industrial ghetto, white america fears and decimates the unnecessary black bodies while simultaneously depending on its cheap or free labor to sustain a new economy.

    In this paper, I trace the path of this development through a small sample of focus points in history and try to set the grounds for understanding the business downtown/inner city ring/suburb as an expression of neoslave narrative.
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  • [email] The Mantra of Multiculturalism, two years later

    Adelante! and cultural org leaders,

    two and half years ago, leaders at orgs of students of color congregated and drafted The Mantra of Multiculturalism, a 13-point document delineating strategies to advocate for multiculturalism in the face of a hostile Macalester administration. Of course, this is my interpretation. Take a look at the document yourself:
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