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A review by jiujensu
Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones by Carole Boyce Davies
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
I highly recommend Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones, especially if you have left leaning feminist anti-racist, anti-capitalist anti-imperialist politics. If the black power, civil rights and labor movements, anti-war protests, and women's rights advocates inspire you, this is a perfect fit. It also gives insight into the red scare, which it seems, is much needed - the discourse isn't much different now as in her time.
As a black communist woman, she was a symbol for much of what the US tried/tries to erase. Since the US Communist Party was criminalized, an 807 page FBI file was compiled, and she was imprisoned and deported for her beliefs and writings. She wrote about peace and equal rights and so was an enemy of the state.
My favorite quote summing up the case against her:
The publication of her ideas was what constituted her criminal offense. Now that the material is all available to us, we can see that in its use of "literary evidence," the state's case rested on literary misinterpretation, flawed and biased analyses, and deliberately superficial critical reading.
As a black communist woman, she was a symbol for much of what the US tried/tries to erase. Since the US Communist Party was criminalized, an 807 page FBI file was compiled, and she was imprisoned and deported for her beliefs and writings. She wrote about peace and equal rights and so was an enemy of the state.
My favorite quote summing up the case against her:
The publication of her ideas was what constituted her criminal offense. Now that the material is all available to us, we can see that in its use of "literary evidence," the state's case rested on literary misinterpretation, flawed and biased analyses, and deliberately superficial critical reading.