Maybe not audiobooks.
Maybe it was my American French teacher at UCLA Extension who carried copies of a communist newspaper in her knapsack and had a knack for pulling her hair back like Simone de Beauvoir.
Maybe it was Mexico City in the 1980’s and the pamphlets on Central American revolution.
Or maybe it was 12th-grade me reading Canto General I by Neruda -– prior to his rape confession.
Audiobooks A-H
Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman
Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notes by Lorenzo Fusaro and Jason Xidias
Autobiography of Malcom X by Malcom X, Alex Haley
Back to Black by Kehinde Andrews
Black Against Empire by Joshua Brown and Waldo E. Martin Jr.
The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James
Black Marxism by Cedric J. Robinson
Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. Du Bois
Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey
China’s Second Continent by Howard French
The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels
A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution by Jeremy D. Popkin
Conquest of Bread by Pyotr Kropotkin
The Cultural Revolution by Frank Dikotter
The Declarations of Havana by Fidel Castro
Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges
Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
***
Possibly it was my grandmother’s stories about 1920’s Tennessee.
***
I began living with my grandmother when I was five years old. And she might have been that same age in Memphis when she started playing with the White girl across the way. It was coincidental that I heard my grandmother’s story at my age since the story was probably directed at my nine-year-old sister more so than me.
I’m not sure what Grandmom and the girl played with. A ball. Maybe rocks.
In Tennessee, my grandmother was the youngest of twelve kids. I don’t know if she ever got to see her sibling who passed away as a baby. I’m also not sure if she ever met her brother who disappeared. That was Wiley who went for a walk one day and never returned. Not ever. And the entire family was left wondering what happened to him in the woods of Memphis.
***
When I lived with Grandmom in Los Angeles, I played in the backyard of the Castilian duplex with my friend Linda who was not only my age but also the daughter of the Black man and woman who owned the beige duplex on the westside — between La Brea and Fairfax.
When I played in the backyard with Linda, one of us would sit on the small, flatbed, trash can cart and clinch the metal handle with all our might while the other spun the cart around on the concrete so we could pretend it was a carnival ride. On other occasions, we wound our waists until exhaustion inside the hot pink and fluorescent lime green Hula Hoops, challenged each other in jump rope, and in the hot summer months, we splashed along the plastic Slip ‘n Slide that lay on the grass. I even remember pulling a mere string around as I pretended it was a leash and imagined I was walking a dog.
But what happened in Memphis with Grandmom during her childhood was she got too old. That was when the mom of the White girl told her daughter she was too old to be playing with Black kids.
Maybe that’s why Grandmom always kept the pictures of Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr. on the wall in her L.A. bedroom.
So, perhaps it was her stories that first taught me about politics.
Audiobooks I-W
Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin
Liberation Theology by Michael Lee
Malcom X by Manning Marable
Malcom X: The Last Speeches by Malcom X
Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World by Rebecca E. Karl
Marcus Garvey: A Biography by Stephen Johnson
Marx, Capital, and the Madness of Reason by David Harvey
The New Age of Empire by Kehinde Andrews
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Philosophy and Opinion of Marcus Garvey by Marcus Garvey
The Radical King by Cornel West
The Red Flag by David Priestland
Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War by Che Guevara
The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left by Landon R. Y. Storrs
State and Revolution by Lenin
Terrorism and Communism by Leon Trotsky and Slavoj Zizek
Vladmir Lenin, Joseph Stalin & Leon Trotsky by Charles River Editors
Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton
***
But if it was audiobooks, it’s because they allowed me to see beyond the confines of a two-party system that offers more of the same – colonialism, capitalism, imperialism.
I’ve voted within the two-party system every election since adulthood, but with the knowledge that my choice wasn’t radical change. It was an effort to maintain civil rights within empire. The blindness of US politics is our avoiding how the U.S. operates as both nation and empire and thus, failing to acknowledge how the imperatives of empire are inhumane and bad for everyone around the globe.
But if it was audiobooks, it’s because as I listened, I scribbled notes on Post-Its. Often, I typed my notes into Google Docs that became pages of documentation.
And the audiobooks allowed me to see the nuances between fascism, conservatism, the various types of liberal laissez faire capitalism, and the many variations in leftist and radical politics. (US liberals would not be considered leftists in more politically literate nations in the world.)
***
But if it was audiobooks, it’s because over the years, they’ve helped me reflect on how I’ve vacillated between social democrat, democratic socialism, socialism, and anarchism. And always with an awareness of how the writings of Marx are crucial for an analysis of capitalism.
***
What if US liberals and radicals were as adamant about distinguishing nuance in politics as they are about gender? Especially on social media, it’s rare a person comes out of the political closet and says: “I’m a communist.” “I’m a democratic socialist.” “I’m an anarchist.” Instead, they leave it up to the listener to figure out their philosophical and political leanings. And if the listener is politically illiterate, the confusion begins. We’ve managed to un-closet gender, but we don’t apply these same standards to politics. (And we can’t expect this from those on the right who are in denial about their own fascism.). In a politically mature society, people would un-closet their politics.
***
After one hundred years of Red Scare anti-communism in the U.S., the closeting of leftist politics and the spread of political illiteracy from the highest levels of academia to the most remote corners of trade union politics have become the norm.
***
So, if it was audiobooks, I’m glad they challenged me. Because at some point, in this nation that publishes more books than any other, we must ask ourselves: What is the function of writing, publishing, and reading, if those activities don’t ensure the maintenance of democracy, healthcare, and education?
(Note: The beginning of this essay was inspired by the manner in which writer/poets Viteszlav Nezval –Czechoslovakia, 1900-1958 — and Teresa Wilms Montt — Chile, 1893-1921 — use repetition. I have been reading their poetry in recent weeks. In making that poetic rhetorical move, I was able to access the list of memories and then choose the one focusing on my grandmother.
I considered submitting this piece to a magazine, but I think the ending plods along and weighs the writing down. I also don’t think a magazine would go for the lists. But I think the lists are like poetry.)
Audrey Shipp 