Barbara Ransby, a history professor at UIC, author of Making All Black Lives Matter, and one of the keynote speakers for the March to the Polls this Saturday, October 13th, hosted a book talk and discussion panel Tuesday at the SEIU Healthcare headquarters on Halsted. The panel also included Jaquie Algee, a board member and organizer of Women’s March Chicago, and Chicago poet and playwright Kristiana Colón, cofounder of #LetUsBreatheCollective and creator of #BlackSexMatters.
“This movement has been inclusive in ways that other movements haven’t,” says Ransby. “We’ve seen movements that have focused on middle-class black folks, black folks who conform to certain middle-class standards of respectability and have not been as concerned about people who are incarcerated, people who are queer, people who are homeless. So this movement has really focused on people who other movements have marginalized.”
According to Ransby, even radically progressive candidates might be in danger of getting “sucked into the vortex of the corporate Democratic party” if there weren’t a movement to support them. This is one reason that voting must be accompanied by action; the system is inherently flawed. Another reason is because of the rise in neo-liberalism in the Democratic party.
