In Class with Carr

Session 348 of In Class With Carr, “Cuffing Season,” considers Tuesday’s US elections as part of a broader struggle of progressive resistance to Social Structures tethered to corporate economic greed and political fascism, from Hungary and Brazil to Serbia, South Africa, France and beyond. These results and anticipated struggles demonstrate possibilities of transformative change emerging from major movement-building efforts from Governance formations in local, city and state entities to expose the vulnerabilities of restrictive top-down efforts for political control. Conflating US "national" identity with US federalism obscures influences from the country’s various, powerful and expanding Ways of Knowing anchored in its racial and cultural diversity. This week’s electoral results pit these influences against narratives desperate to cling to familiar but weakening narratives of settler colonial myths that favor Eurocentric and nativist Social Structures, historically held together through voter manipulation or suppression.Drawing on Africana Cultural Meaning-Making, we use the Africana Cultural Meaning-Making metaphor of “Cuffing Season,” an annual ritual of pragmatic coupling that emerges in response to colder weather conditions, to place this election’s acts of political bonding and binding in a longer arc of memory.Tuesday’s results represent a convergence of diverse nonelite constituencies choosing to restrain authoritarianism while simultaneously cuffing through coalitions linked to our common human interests.As Michigan Senator-elect Abdul el-Sayed frequently says, social change depends on the growing momentum of “many over money.” Narrow interests that capture and control social and legal apparatuses can have their grip broken as a result.The question remains, however: What happens to these pragmatic alliances when “Cuffing Season” is over?Will those who come together under extreme conditions stay together when the moment temporarily subsides?Are you a member of Knarrative? If not, we invite you to join our community today by signing up at: https://www.knarrative.com. As a Knarrative subscriber, you'll gain immediate access to Knubia, our growing community of teachers, learners, thinkers, doers, artists, and creators. Together, we're making a generational commitment to our collective interests, work, and responsibilities. Join us at https://www.knarrative.com and download the Knubia app through your app store or by visiting https://community.knarrative.com.To shop Go to:TheGlobalMajorityMore from us:Follow on X: https://x.com/knarrative_https://x.com/inclasswithcarrFollow on Instagram  IG / knarrative   IG/ inclasswithcarr Follow Dr. Carr: https://www.drgregcarr.comhttps://x.com/AfricanaCarrFollow Karen Hunter: https://karenhuntershow.comhttps://x.com/karenhunter IG / karenhuntershowSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"As contesting forces in the 2026 US election cycle hurtle toward uncertain conclusions, Session 347 of In Class With Carr, “How to Treat a Trick,” focuses on how to minimize mediated distractions engineered to retard Africana Governance consciousness and derail collective Black political action.From corporate elites determined to shape politics for maximum profit to political actors determined to seize and wield the apparatus of state for their own individual profit and group ideological fantasies, Social Structure forces have gone to unprecedented lengths to assault public sensibilities and distort reality.Countering these “tricks” require unyielding and regular strategic focus on political education and using all available tools to engage in acts of collective self-defense for collective survival and thriving.In this season of electoral choice, those tools include and center the vote, the easiest and most essential tool for rechanneling political capital for repurposing economic resources. As with every election cycle for African people, forms of freedom are on the ballot.True political education requires prioritizing understanding the power of long-term and effective collective organizing over falling prey to superficial, media-driven manipulation for exploitative and oppressive interests.”Are you a member of Knarrative? If not, we invite you to join our community today by signing up at: https://www.knarrative.com. As a Knarrative subscriber, you'll gain immediate access to Knubia, our growing community of teachers, learners, thinkers, doers, artists, and creators. Together, we're making a generational commitment to our collective interests, work, and responsibilities. Join us at https://www.knarrative.com and download the Knubia app through your app store or by visiting https://community.knarrative.com.To shop Go to:TheGlobalMajorityMore from us:Follow on X: https://x.com/knarrative_https://x.com/inclasswithcarrFollow on Instagram  IG / knarrative   IG/ inclasswithcarr Follow Dr. Carr: https://www.drgregcarr.comhttps://x.com/AfricanaCarrFollow Karen Hunter: https://karenhuntershow.comhttps://x.com/karenhunter IG / karenhuntershowSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Election Day has arrived for most of the United States, with over twenty million people having already cast a vote as of late October. In Class With Carr 346, “Running in Place,” balances tensions of Governance-centered African political engagement in and against a convulsing US Federal Social Structure during this election cycle and beyond. How can, should, and/or will we exert energies and gather and expend resources in this fraught political moment?How are we undertaking efforts to protect our basic ability to be, to survive systemic and collective assault, and to prevent further erosion of our current social and cultural status and political and economic position while strengthening the Momentum of Memory in order to feed larger visions and work for our collective future?“Running in Place” challenges us to reflect on our relationships to the US Social Structure, drawing from ICWC Session 345’s discussion of Governance protocols for defending “home.” Examining Movement and Memory for evidence of collective motivations for voting as acts of collective self defense and self preservation, we displace appeals to individual interest as Ways of Knowing. This also removes notions of “patriotic responsibility,” “civic duty” or “saving America” as grounding motivations. In the face of increasingly desperate attempts to disrupt, intimidate, target, and/or suppress electoral political action, we continue the work of community-subsidized education and active study as vital tools of resistance and building for a better today and tomorrow.Are you a member of Knarrative? If not, we invite you to join our community today by signing up at: https://www.knarrative.com. As a Knarrative subscriber, you'll gain immediate access to Knubia, our growing community of teachers, learners, thinkers, doers, artists, and creators. Together, we're making a generational commitment to our collective interests, work, and responsibilities. Join us at https://www.knarrative.com and download the Knubia app through your app store or by visiting https://community.knarrative.com.To shop Go to:TheGlobalMajorityMore from us:Follow on X: https://x.com/knarrative_https://x.com/inclasswithcarrFollow on Instagram  IG / knarrative   IG/ inclasswithcarr Follow Dr. Carr: https://www.drgregcarr.comhttps://x.com/AfricanaCarrFollow Karen Hunter: https://karenhuntershow.comhttps://x.com/karenhunter IG / karenhuntershowSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the United States, France and Brazil, country-wide election cycles are heavily underway. As global Social Structures continue to be remade by conflicting economic, political and social agendas, Africana Governance formations and impulses fight to harness a Momentum of Memory in order to contest for collective state power and resist coordinated efforts to suppress popular social and political movements. As African and other students fight for quality education in French colonies and its mainland and African students in the US march for their lives and to protect and exercise collective Black power through the vote, HBCU homecoming season reinforces rituals of Cultural Meaning-Making. What is the nature, meaning and value of a concept of “home” as place, idea and context for social transformation? What happens when our sense of self and home are roiled by serial assaults grounded in who we have been to other, hostile social forces?How do or can our responses determine the course of our individual and collective lives? Is there a coming Black home? Are you a member of Knarrative? If not, we invite you to join our community today by signing up at: https://www.knarrative.com. As a Knarrative subscriber, you'll gain immediate access to Knubia, our growing community of teachers, learners, thinkers, doers, artists, and creators. Together, we're making a generational commitment to our collective interests, work, and responsibilities. Join us at https://www.knarrative.com and download the Knubia app through your app store or by visiting https://community.knarrative.com.To shop Go to:TheGlobalMajorityMore from us:Follow on X: https://x.com/knarrative_https://x.com/inclasswithcarrFollow on Instagram  IG / knarrative   IG/ inclasswithcarr Follow Dr. Carr: https://www.drgregcarr.comhttps://x.com/AfricanaCarrFollow Karen Hunter: https://karenhuntershow.comhttps://x.com/karenhunter IG / karenhuntershowSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week’s In Class With Carr comes from the Annual Convening of the National Conference of Black Lawyers. NCBL, founded in 1968 to serve as the Legal Arm of the Movement for Black Liberation, brings together lawyers, scholars, organizers, judges, legal workers, law students and legal activists to enhance our collective ability to struggle for full social, political and economic rights. Today’s discussion uses an Africana Studies Conceptual Category framework to frame “law” as both concept and tool, not to create a "more perfect union" in the United States or elsewhere but as a battlefield for resistance and collective local, state-level and global self-determination.This is intergenerational, multigenerational work, connected through an unbroken genealogy and bridging gaps between elders and youngers in exchanges of experience, knowledge, ability and innovative energy. In a moment of both heightened opportunity and challenge, we must challenge our intergenerational warriors to use globally-anchored strategies, to defend institutional memory, and to anchor legal and policymaking battles in African Intelligence (AI).Are you a member of Knarrative? If not, we invite you to join our community today by signing up at: https://www.knarrative.com. As a Knarrative subscriber, you'll gain immediate access to Knubia, our growing community of teachers, learners, thinkers, doers, artists, and creators. Together, we're making a generational commitment to our collective interests, work, and responsibilities. Join us at https://www.knarrative.com and download the Knubia app through your app store or by visiting https://community.knarrative.com.To shop Go to:TheGlobalMajorityMore from us:Follow on X: https://x.com/knarrative_https://x.com/inclasswithcarrFollow on Instagram  IG / knarrative   IG/ inclasswithcarr Follow Dr. Carr: https://www.drgregcarr.comhttps://x.com/AfricanaCarrFollow Karen Hunter: https://karenhuntershow.comhttps://x.com/karenhunter IG / karenhuntershowSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.