The Black Radical Tradition

It is difficult to explain what is so wonderful about the Black Radical Tradition, and what it means to me. Maybe this is because there are far too many things it stands for, and each of them speaks to one another, inseparable.
It means to me a multitude. It is the multitude of being, knowing, one of learning, and one of experiencing. It not only allows for the existence but pushes for the flourishing of difference, change, and of growth. It epitomises learning and most importantly, un-learning. 

In Malcolm X, we see a man characterised by anger and passion. But we also see change, growth, and an un-learning of so much. The Malcolm that once said "revolutionaries don't compromise with the enemy; they don't negotiate" is the same Malcolm who later admitted to his generalisation of all whites as enemies as misplaced. We see salvation; not only the possibility but the magnitude of change. 

Alongside Malcolm, we think of Martin Luther King. Seemingly opposed to the former, MLK tells us that "non-violence is the relentless pursuit of truthful ends by moral means".  He seems to be the epitome of peace and love, for whom these are the ways of struggle and of the world. Despite his differences with Malcolm, both are a part of the Tradition with each their own merits and significance for the movement. 

While we lose ourselves in these figures, bell hooks comes to tell us of the difficulty of being seen in their presence. She speaks of a different kind of struggle but one just as necessary. She tells us what it is to resist in the face of two forces-patriarchy and racism. She tells us of the troubles that came with two modes of existence, and we are made privy to a different way of being that translates into a multitude of experiences, just as valid as any other. 

Audre Lorde says she "cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group". When hooks tells us two ways of being, Lorde brings to our notice even more. These women, along several others, present to us the innumerable ways in which one can exist, and the various ways in which one can resist. They tell us that no freedom is too large or too small, and that when it comes, it must come for all with the promise of leaving no one behind. 

If we were to put these various aspects of the Tradition together, it wouldn't be too inaccurate to presume that they point to one thing, the most important of all. If the Tradition means a multitude of being, experience, and resistance, it all converges to the point of magnificent hope. 

The stories and history of this Tradition are marked by struggle, torture, pain and suffering. Despite all this, however, we are reminded of the constant hope all these people saw in the world in trying to make it better. Each member of the Tradition fought in their own way, resisted through their own means. Through them we get an idea of the potential they saw not only in the world, but in the people around them, even at times those that had wronged them. The Tradition means to me a hope that as long as there is a fight for what is right, there is hope. Hope that the world can change, and that humankind will change it. 

This is exemplified through something Cesaire says, almost as if the simplest of truths. He says “mankind is not only mankind, it is universe”. Though he talks of poetry, we see in his statement the most basic truth, exemplified by the Tradition. That all of this starts with us, only if we do right by it. This hope, of a constant fight to do better, is what the Tradition means to me.