The following readings are supposed to give you an idea of the perspective that our caucus is united around as well as some brief notes on strategy, structure, and procedure.

Key:

•   + Highly recommended
•   – Recommended

Political Perspectives

• + Barbara Fields: Racecraft, Chapter 4
  A summary of the history of American slavery and the racism that slavery produced.
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kC4oWIwS84gBQaVhJiFmCd42b0eZijR1/view?usp=sharing

• + Adolph Reed Jr: Race, Class, Crisis: The Discourse of Racial Disparity and Its Analytical Discontents
  A discussion of how racism is an incomplete explanation for racial disparity in America.
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qfDIw-DqaGZYoEbAZahJX0U-SGqEukli/view?usp=sharing

• + Barbara Fields: Whiteness, Racism, and Identity
  On the important difference between racism and race.
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qPLOg7cqzYLLNafP3J5mSKjM1IYS9T8Z/view?usp=sharing

• – Cedric Johnson: The Panthers Can’t Save Us Now. Page 59.
  On the inadequacy of 70’s black power politics.
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ylpCe20xVFZVjPdsShxQQvZGcuuaFb5z/view?usp=sharing

Marxism

• Karl Kautsky: Class Struggle
  + Chapters 1-3
  – Chapters 4-5
  A plainly written and straightforward overview of Marxism’s political and economic aspects.
  https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1892/erf[urt/

• + Karl Marx: Critique of the Gotha Programme.
  A brief tour of Marx’s critique of the 1870s German socialist movement.
  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm

• – E.P. Thompson: Preface to The Making of the English Working Class
  A brief explanation of how class is a relationship, not a thing.
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ta5HQ3NuGyYDNcs-eELuo5bkhVvqNk6n/view?usp=sharing

Strategies

• + Marcie Smith:  Change Agent: Gene Sharp’s Neoliberal Nonviolence (Part 2)
  On the dangers of horizontalism, consensus decision making, and avoiding power.
  https://nonsite.org/feature/change-agent-gene-sharps-neoliberal-nonviolence-part-two

• + Dustin Guastella & Jared Abbott: A Socialist Party in Our Time? Page 7.
  An in-depth look at one of CU’s central positions: the need for a party surrogate.
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/16-KXj5h8tpCylTWmiIq5adFlOKEauzIe/view?usp=sharing

• – Marcie Smith: Change Agent: Gene Sharp’s Neoliberal Nonviolence (Part 1)
  Critically evaluates a central theorist of the protest left.
  https://nonsite.org/article/change-agent-gene-sharps-neoliberal-nonviolence-part-one

Procedure

• + Why Robert’s Rules are Important for Working People
  https://classunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/the_point_of_rr.pdf

• + Introduction to Robert’s Rules
  https://classunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/RR_cheatsheet.pdf

• + Dustin Guastella: Caucuses, Conflicts and Convention
  An explanation of the importance of organization for factions.
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1roL2jvjIWuJdMK3oCdlyLyG-B_BZtwnT/view?usp=sharing