The civil rescue operations in the Mediterranean lie at the intersection of cooperative practices and governance. They represent a microcosm of cooperation in the interstices of and against the violence of the state. Just like the Black Panther Party in the previous seminar, these civil society initiatives constitute a form of governing. [To continue, read here]
Making and consuming food is, inherently, a cooperative activity. These acts derive much of their power from being a communal activity. This had such resonance in the Black Panther Party’s work. The Free Breakfast for Children program fulfilled specific needs: of feeding children and getting them to school. But it was also the choice of food, how the Panthers sourced the food, who made the food, and everything that happened during and around eating: homework help, Black history, and the mentoring from young, smart people in the young childrens’ community. And the amount of coordination — and cooperation! — that had to occur to actually run the breakfast program was astounding. [Continue reading here…]
The foundation for a conversation about the Black Panther Party’s social programs should begin with the Ten Point Platform and Program. Almost all of the programs began with an innovative example that then became part of sustainable community programs, like churches, hospitals and other non profits. Some of the programs like the Free Breakfast for Schoolchildren Program were actually community organizing tools because local residents were hosting kids in their homes, pastors in their churches etc. [Continue reading here…]
When we tell the history of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, we often focus on the open carrying of guns and the armed police patrols. That was spectacular. It is what propelled the Black Panthers into the national spotlight—especially the confrontation at the California statehouse in Sacramento on May 2, 1967. But what receives less attention is that, at the very moment the Black Panther Party emerged in October 1966, it came to life with a mission focused on community service and cooperation: a ten-point platform and program focused on combatting poverty in African-American communities. The platform demanded social and economic rights, including full employment, housing, food, education, land, clothing, as well as justice and peace, and very quickly cooperative community programs were put in place for child and adult nutrition, education, health and welfare. Community service and cooperation were central to the mission. [Continue reading here…]
On the evening of Thursday, January 25, 2024, the State of Alabama strapped a man, Kenneth Smith, to its execution gurney, placed a mask over his face, and pumped nitrogen gas hoping to asphyxiate him quickly. It was an execution method never used before in human history. Steve Marshall, the Alabama Attorney General, promised that Mr. Smith would be unconscious within seconds. What the media witnesses and others, including Mr. Smith’s family and Elizabeth Sennett’s sons, watched was very different—a far cry from the peaceful and dignified passing that Marshall presented to the Supreme Court and the public. It was another botched execution in Alabama: Mr. Smith remained conscious for many minutes after the nitrogen gas started flowing, struggled and writhed on the gurney, convulsed, dry heaved and retched into his mask, gasped for breath, and was finally pronounced dead 22 minutes later. [Continue reading here…]
In her book, Rivals: How Scientists Learned to Cooperate (2023), Lorraine Daston traces the evolution of scientific cooperation from the eighteenth century to present times. Daston focuses on three periods which, she argues, capture different styles of scientific cooperation during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Over the past three centuries, Daston identifies progress, culminating in the twentieth-century concept of “a scientific community.” [Continue reading here…]
In an essay on Genet published in Grand Street, Edward Said tells the story of leaving Hamilton Hall to see Genet speak (on the steps of the Low Library) at a rally for the Black Panthers in the spring of 1970, with the university having yet to recover from the student protests of 1968. Said noted about Columbia that at that time “its administration was feeling uncertain, its faculty were badly divided, its students were perpetually exercised both in and out of the classroom.” At the Panther rally, Said observed a great difference between “the declarative simplicity of Genet’s French remarks” and “the immensely baroque embellishment of them by my erstwhile student.” [Continue reading…]
What are the stakes today in revisiting the mid-twentieth century debates between Franz Neumann, Friedrich Pollock, Otto Kirchheimer, and Ernst Fraenkel over the concept of “state capitalism” and their analysis of National Socialism as a totalitarian economic regime – other than matters of historical interest? The discussion at Coöperism 8/13 highlighted at least three. [Continue reading here…}