Melanine

When The Two Sevens Clash

Nico Melanine — 2013-11-16T20:51:24Z

The UK and especially London were places of great musical activity and creativity in the 70s. At the end of the decade two genres seemingly wide apart, Reggae and Punk, came together. What came out of it was not only musically innovative but also tackled some important social and political issues at the time.
While a number of young black people born in Britain were searching for aspects of their identity through Rastafarianism and Reggae, Punk became a voice of protest for a large section (...)

- Like elephants and monkeys

There Will Be Mixed Blood: TV On the Radio, Werewolves Like Us

Grégory Pierrot — 2013-11-04T07:42:36Z

Blood is a strong marker in American politics, and TV On the Radio tap into this vein in their lyrics and videos. Blood in TVOTR is systematically connected to notions of political engagement, community and love in reflections on the intersection of race, love, entertainment and politics. So are monsters, specifically of the lycanthropic kind.
But remember this... The werewolf instinctively seeks to kill the thing it loves best.
The Werewolf of London, 1935.
I was a lover before this (...)

- Like elephants and monkeys

Strike in the French West Indies

@Alfred, Alfred — 2009-02-21T16:40:14Z

It happens so rarely that it might just be a dream: the West Indies are on the front pages of all major French newspapers, several days in a row? What the hell is happening? It is a revolt. No; a revolution. Looking beyond usual official bullshit about strikes and riots and the like, one can only notice that the Antillean movement is a bold gesture against the plague of the liberal capitalist economic system. You read that right. Read on for historical contextualization and internet (...)

- A matter of class / Antilles-Guyane- Réunion, Violences sociales, États-Unis d'Amérique du Nord, Martinique

The British working class is no more racist than the talking suit on your television

Nico Melanine — 2009-02-06T00:07:54Z

A minimal investigation can establish that the wildcat strike begun at the Lindsey refinery in Great Britain is based on legitimate demands. Rather than tackling real problems, and out of class reflex, the media and politicians have chosen to systematically accuse the strikers of being racist.
A minimal investigation can establish that the wildcat strike begun at the Lindsey refinery in Great Britain is based on legitimate demands. Rather than tackling real problems, and out of class (...)

- A matter of class

Transnationalism in translation: the engaged intellectual's melancholia

Melanine Choir — 2008-02-12T20:32:05Z

Second part of our interview with Vron Ware and Paul Gilroy, in which we discuss cultural studies and the difficulty of exporting them, the role of engaged intellectuals in our world, and ways to reconcile feminism, antiracism and a critique of capitalism in the 21st century.

- Read my lips

Whose history?: Conversation about heritage, the abolition of slavery and national sentiment

Melanine Choir — 2008-01-23T13:46:03Z

Remembrance, history, heritage: this is first part of a conversation around the research interests of these two British sociologists whose works explore the relations between notions of race, culture and nationalism. If their studies tend to focus on Great Britain and the USA, their methods offer a model that begs to be adapted to French circumstances and specificities, in order to start to think an alternative to Sarkozy and his ghost writer Guaino's vision of “civilization.”

- Read my lips

Thugs, Punks, or Wise?

@Alfred, Nico Melanine — 2008-01-03T20:11:15Z

The recent crisis in the French projects of Villiers-le-Bel revealed once more how mainstream groupthink never learns. It recycles its own mediocrity in order to spread the same old class scorn: an ideology we should reject and fight.

- A matter of class

Nicolas Sarkozy: his nation in danger

@Alfred — 2007-05-18T14:09:25Z

Oh, the sweet irony of the May 10th photo-op in the Luxembourg gardens in Paris... It was the second national day of commemoration of the abolition of slavery in France. This nice pretext was all but erased by the occasion, a historical occasion, we learned on conservative French channel TF1: Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy were there, together, one on the outs, one coming in! History in the making! And for Sarkozy, this was about presenting a certain idea of the nation. His nation. Not ours.

- Je dis ca...je dis rien

Maroon Slaves and Black Flags

@Alfred, Soopa Seb — 2007-01-13T05:44:55Z

During slavery's reign of horror, solidarities were struck between human groups everything should have kept apart: white sailors, maroon slaves, black freedmen, white indentured servants joined in common, pre-revolutionary struggles. A thing to ponder in times of communautarist discourse, when some of our politicians fuel with xenophobic discourse the skewed debate over the “cultural” and “ethnic” divisions that allegedly characterize the populace.

- A matter of class

Fight alongside your defenders

Alfred — 2006-09-08T17:34:27Z

Lilian Thuram has done it again, this time with fellow French soccer star Patrick Vieira, much to the dismay of the French right wing parties. The French international cap record holder and the team captain think they have a right to use their brains as well as they use their feet. Left-wing softies get all woozy for them: it is so good to have niggers do your job. Thuram and Vieira don't care. They're used to it.

- Like elephants and monkeys