rootsandculture

This second in a series of essays continues the excavation of race, ethnicity, class, and the inequities that flow. I have chosen Freddie Kissoon’s daily columns in Kaieteur News as a source of entry points and to remind us of the work still to do. Kissoon’s good-fortune comes partly from bell hooks' direction that we must critique popular culture, partly from Freddie’s own celebrity, and partly his own willingness to critique popular culture. Freddie recently wrote Judas and the Black Messiah: Who is the Guyanese, William O’Neal . In that column he reviewed the film, Judas and the Black Messiah and raised comparisons between the betrayals and assassinations of Walter Rodney, co-founder of the Working Peoples’ Alliance (WPA), in Guyana and that of Fred Hampton in Chicago. Hampton founded the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party. My issue with both, column and film, is that they prioritize individual actions over those of the state. In the process, they ignored the things the...