C. L. R. James on the Negro Question Book

I have been reading this book for almost 8 months (deepest apologies to the Oakland Public Library, I'mma be there in 5 minutes...). It felt like a good use of time mainly because reading a collection of essays as dense as James's requires a level of patience and attention to detail that, reading them all once in a shorter span I would feel as though I hadn't grasped all of the information. Instead, I feel as though'unable to clearly remember the intimate details of, say, the first essay'that I have been sitting with his general praxes and philosophies I have been otherwise living my life.

It is both acutely interesting and terrifying how *similar* the times in which we live today mirror the times in which James wrote. His suggestions for what needs to happen to overthrow capitalism and finally, mercifully, bring about a world in which the terrorization and oppression of Black peoples has ceased: also terrifyingly similar to what many Black activists, scholars, and regular ass Black people know has to happen today. There is an indescribable feeling of kinship that provides, but so too does it make the feeling that the inevitable cyclical nature of time will mean that there is no breaking the circle, but rather only room to make dings in the chain. You should read because you should read the things that C.L.R. James writes, but also because it is imperative to realize that we don't have to continue doing all the same political work every 30-40 years if we have the patience and humility to look behind us.