"The speaker at the Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation who impressed me most was the Trinidad-born sage and Marxist historian, C.L.R. James, who had the misfortune of following his fellow countryman Stokely Carmichael to the podium. Stokely had also been born in Trinidad but grew up in New York. He no longer spoke the Caribbean dialect, but his peculiar style of repetitive oratory suggested it. And at the end of every thought he repeated the last few words, as a sort of chorus: And the resistance to doing anything meaningful about institutionalized racism stems from the fact that western society enjoys its luxury from institutionalized racism, and therefore, were it to end institutionalized racism, it would in fact destroy itself, destroy itself, destroy itself, destroy itself. Stokely was mesmerizing and brought the audience to its feet in chants and cheers. C.L.R. James, in contrast, spoke to a quiet audience that applauded politely only at the end of his speech. As a fellow black Caribbean, James subtly chided Stokely for his black nationalist hyperbole and call to arms; he spoke of a revolution based on class."
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Journalists from Trinidad and TobagoHistorians from Trinidad and TobagoEssayists from Trinidad and TobagoPlaywrights from Trinidad and TobagoTrotskyists
Original Language: English
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Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years 1960-1975 (2002)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._L._R._James
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C. L. R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 19 May 1989) was a Trinidadian-born anti-colonial Marxist activist and writer.
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