So I want to read a question relating to procrastination and I'm reading this one because I had a few similar type of questions about this issue. In my book on procrastination I talk about only committing to small pieces of work on a daily basis and this question kind of it's from somebody who who tried this idea but ran into problems. So let me just read the question first of all and then I'll explain the solution to this type of procrastination that this person is experiencing. So it's just I get your idea that small amounts of effort are key to overcome procrastination. Okay and that's exactly true so we want to be consciously telling ourselves only making small commitments not working worrying about finishing projects just the next step is all we focus on. However when there's external pressure of expectation I can't seem to overcome procrastination. I know these people expect me to put in a lot of work and that it will be it must be of high quality. So should my approach be different when I'm under external pressure? Now what I'm going to say to this is there's a little bit more to the question but let me just address that part first. Should my approach be different when I'm under all this external pressure which will be a little bit different to like a personal project where you have much more control over and really the only person you're accountable to is yourself? Well the short answer is not really it's there's no difference okay the approach is the same in terms of only committing to small amounts of work and the other thing I talk about is having consequences for yourself when you don't show up to work when you say you will but there's no difference in the approach whether it's only yourself you're you're holding yourself that's going to hold you accountable or it's other people that are going to be expecting things of you and the reason for this is with something where you have all these external pressures and people have all these expectations of you the truth is okay there's going to be and especially if there's like a high quality of work you're expected to produce am I going to have to put in a lot of work in this one part of this can can rationally say yes probably the work the quality of work I produce here will be higher if I put in more work and that's rational but you know the same holds true also for a personal project you're working on you know if you're working on setting up a side business or something for yourself or working on a passion project isn't it also true there that the amount of work you put in will likely lead to a better outcome okay so there's not really much difference in that what I'm really saying here is we're all aware that the amount of work I put in towards anything I'm working on whether it be external accountability involved or not the amount of work we put in is going to lead to a better outcome you see my whole approach with procrastination is I completely accept that I'm not trying to deny that that's the case when I tell people to only commit the small amounts of work and try to be consistent with that and also to have these consequences and boundaries with your work the difference here and this is the whole thing about procrastination is that that's rational this idea that yes more work equals probably a higher outcome or a better end product but with procrastination what we're dealing with is an irrational we could say or a much more emotional or a part of us that needs a lot more compassion rather than just a cold hard logical rational approach to something it's the part of me that says I don't want to do this even though rationally it will be a good idea but did a lot of this it's the part that says I don't want to do it that we have to work with so what we're doing with is it's almost as if you can have two mindsets simultaneously here one is kind of saying of course more work here would probably be a good thing at the same time there's another part to me that has no interest in doing it at all and I have to start to talk to it in a way that's going to allow it to come out of its defensive posture and move forward towards that maybe more rational goal okay so procrastination it's it's there's the the rational the cold hard rational solution here isn't going to make any difference it's all about how we talk to the part that's resistant that doesn't want to step forward that it maybe is a bit afraid or overwhelmed by this whole thing that's what makes all the difference and this is why we only talk to ourselves in terms of small steps at a time because this part over here wants us to do all extra more more more and this part is like I don't want to do anything at all so we're trying to convince this part to get on board and telling this part this the part that's afraid that it has to do huge amounts of work is going to make it completely climb up and get defensive and uncooperative entirely so there's a little bit extra here on this question it says you say to only commit the small amounts of work at a time however I know this simply won't cut it I'll have to put in massive amounts of work to stay on their good side okay so exactly what we're talking about there we have an intention and openness to doing a lot of work right but at the same time as you're holding that intention we have to talk to this afraid part in a way that's going to make it come forward and come along with this in this in this goal it also says here while I stopped making plans based on your advice the planning didn't help me overcome procrastination anyway I can't get the thoughts of work out of my mind okay so I do talk about how planning is not very effective in terms of overcoming procrastination the final thing it says here it says even when I'm not working I'm thinking about about it constantly and I'm I'm not even doing any of the work so please help now this thing about planning planning in terms of traditional the traditional way that people plan is not helpful in terms of procrastination because what we typically do is we get out a piece of paper and we write down I'm going to work from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and then I'm going to work here and then I'm going to work here and I'm going to do a little bit more work here and then I'll finish off with work here maybe or something like that but it's work work work work work is is where we see the focus when we're planning in this fashion now what we want to start doing is I'm not against planning per se because you'll notice even though you're not making the plans your mind even if you're not writing it down your mind in the background is still actively planning work work work I have to do this much work there's so much work to do I have to work more so it's already it's just doing it sort of without the piece of paper it's just mentally planning so what we do is we we actively plan but we schedule out where are the boundaries with work what are the other emotional needs I need to meet and I have those as our set intentions literally plan out time and space for those things so that those things outside of work do not feel threatened by our the size of our goal that we have okay so that's something that will really help with the cooperation here so with the main point with this one is this whole thing of look external accountability you don't understand I really have to do the work I have to do so much work and that's the reality of my situation that's true also for personal projects the more work we do the better we get on with them right no one is in denial of that fact here the question is that's almost irrelevant entirely for procrastination procrastination is how do I talk to the part of myself that is uncooperative and one of the biggest things is to only take on small things at a time don't commit to finishing the project only commit to starting it and working on your next step and then finally to have a very clear boundaries one final thing a really useful thing I'll say about boundaries boundaries is very strict about when I'm stepping away from my work or when am I doing other things that are not work related one of the things that's really helpful with that is let's say you do have this external accountability and you have you know you're thinking to yourself I do really have a lot of work I need to do here that's absolutely fine so if that is the case when you're planning some time away from work you could even reduce that amount of time away from work doing other things mean your other emotional needs but the thing about it is you have to schedule something for those things that are not work related you have to do it deliberately and consciously right they can't be an afterthought that maybe you'll get to at some point so whereas on a typical day where there's less external accountability you might say okay I'm giving myself four hours of time tonight to do nothing to do no work now if it's the case you're under all this pressure you might say well I'm only going to give myself an hour of time away from work here potentially now that's maybe not too sustainable over the long term and I would hope that you will get back to your normal way of doing things where you're giving yourself much more time away from work but in these high pressure scenarios like this intense scenarios like this it's okay to set aside and actively write down briefer periods of time away from work maybe rest or relaxation time but do it consciously and be very strict with implementing what you've committed to in terms of that right it's not so much the time that you're giving your other emotional needs it's do your other emotional needs trust you to stick with what you agreed to give them because this is the development of self-trust and this is you having really strict boundaries so you can still have super strict boundaries with work even if you're taking on more work but you have to be strict with the boundaries so I don't know if that will make sense to many people who haven't watched any of my other stuff on this or maybe read my book on it I hope so but this is a question I get quite a lot of and I want you to just kind of start to see that the whole idea of external accountability shouldn't really change your approach to personal productivity all that much because nothing really changes we always want to do our best in terms of our productivity it's just a matter of talking to the part of us that isn't on board with that quite often for good reasons there's not on board with that sometimes it can be about you know self-protective sort of thing about procrastination can be a way to avoid judgment it can also be a way for us to say well look we can rationalize after a disappointment let's say you do hand in this work that you've you've done and it's judged very harshly if you can say it to yourself in that situation well look I didn't really do that much work on it and in that case it's not really a reflection of your ability so therefore your self-worth is not implicated in that so procrastination can be a way for us to protect ourselves like that but the main thing again is just stick to conscious boundaries and only focus on doing the next achievable small step and then see where you are and look to another subsequent small commitment because that's how the nervous system is cooperative and will be cooperative when you're working towards one of these goals even if it's a big one guys I'll leave it there for now I hope that's useful information about overcoming procrastination even in really stressful situations like this and I'll see you again soon in the next video take care bye


Okay, so black oppression in the West, particularly in the US, has been an integral part of capitalism since its inception. In fact, the transatlantic slave trade, which really laid the basis for the development of capitalism, was instrumental in forming modern race relations in how they exist today. And from the times of slavery up until now, there has been a long and powerful history of black struggle in which black nationalism has played a big role at various times. But this is not a new discussion. It has been a part of the black struggle movement since its very early days. And I would say that the black nationalist movement has expressed itself in different ways over the last century. Black nationalism as a whole is quite an amorphous concept. It's not a fixed thing. I think various different people would have a different definition. It has included in different periods the demand for a separate nation state. It can encompass for some people the colonial revolutions that took place across Africa, and various other struggles for black liberation. Black nationalism in the US, I would say, is not the exact same thing as black nationalism, if you can call it that, in Africa or African countries. Although clearly many black nationalists, particularly in the West, identify strongly with the movements that took place, the anti-colonial revolutions that took place across Africa. So since the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a searching for ideas. And many people are correctly looking at previous struggles to find answers to try and find a way forward.  So what we are trying to answer today is how should we as Marxists, as communists, relate to this who are also dedicated to the cause of black liberation. And the first thing I want to say is that we don't take a moralistic or a sentimental view of history. Our job is to study the class struggle and draw certain conclusions on what has worked and also what hasn't worked. And if it hasn't worked, we need to understand why. What were the ideas? What was the strategy? And what was the form? So we have to deal in large part with the US, with the United States. The US is the biggest capitalist economy in the world. The movement of the masses there is of vital importance. And black workers have been a very important part of its history and the class struggle that takes place in America. And you had the slave trade, brutal conditions, and a revolutionary abolitionist movement followed by a period of migration and various different changes and circumstances. All of that period is what lays the basis, lays the foundations for the development of political ideas emerging from the black masses. So the first serious wave of black nationalism was expressed quite soon after the 20th century. Now, this wasn't the first example of black political life or even black self-organization. Instinctively, black workers would form self-defense committees where necessary to protect themselves against lynch mobs and other attacks that were commonplace in this time. So this was already in place. You also had black newspapers that were regularly writing and commenting on issues concerning black people. Martin Delaney is someone who's considered to be the originator of the phrase Africa for the Africans. And he wrote for a paper alongside Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass being the famous black abolitionist, that was aimed at the black population, aimed at the black masses to kind of raise their level and their interest in political issues. And Martin Delaney actually, in his pursuit of black liberation, he saw out foreign colonization opportunities. That was his idea. And this is in very early period. So this was around 1859, 1860. He led an exploration party across parts of West Africa, and they were trying to find different parts that they thought would be a good opportunity, a good place to settle. So you can see, even in its earliest forms, it had different and confused ideas that reflected different class positions and class outlooks. This is obviously Frederick Douglass, for example, a key abolitionist figure, but essentially saw a fairer capitalism as a way forward, as a way to liberate the black masses. And this isn't surprising for that period. The working class at this stage in America is incredibly small still. And so we can understand why working class politics still hasn't taken on a strong sense. So you have reconstruction, which is this period after slavery in which the free black population is trying to change their conditions. But what happens is the immediate implementation of Jim Crow laws, racist segregation, the KKK is founded, violence, lynchings, all of this is incredibly common, particularly in the South. So the point is this is a life of brutality, if you're black. So eventually we see a movement beginning to organize or develop on a wider basis. Of course, there's always different forms of fighting back also throughout slavery, you know, there's different slave movements. But after slavery, there's different forms. And eventually it starts to coalesce into a wider, into a wider movement, a wider basis. So we see a movement of the free black masses taking place. And in 1914, an organization is formed, the United Negro Improvement Association, which was headed by Marcus Garvey, also known as the Back to Africa movement, something that people probably have heard of. And this is probably the biggest black nationalist movement in the history of the US. The organization itself had hundreds of thousands, potentially even millions of black Americans enrolled in kind of part of this movement, this organization. It was a huge operation. It ran businesses and employed thousands of people. They would hold huge rallies aimed at raising the cultural level, instilling black pride amongst the masses. And these would be huge affairs, big parades that would take place through the streets.  But that movement came to failure. It came to failure with entirely reactionary consequences and conclusions, the kind of attempt to create an alternative black ruling class in a different country. And the reason it came to a failure is because the movement, the leadership of the movement was thoroughly petty bourgeois in its, in its outlook. In fact, Marcus Garvey saw communism and Marxism as an enemy to black people and a danger to black workers. And he made speeches to that effect. But what was this? What did that movement represent? Trotsky described the nationalism of the oppressed as the outer shell of an immature Bolshevism, which means that there can be a progressive element to nationalism. And so what you had with, with Marcus Garvey, with this back to Africa movement, was the mass politicization suddenly of one of the most oppressed layers in American society being swept into politics for the first time, directly challenging the state. And this did represent an important step forward. We can describe Garvey, Garveyism as a, as a kind of radical rejection of a society that is rejecting themselves. That is how we can understand it. This unleashing of black pride and cultural level, which was an important part of it. In Garvey's extreme, it was a kind of reactionary racial purity, which is what he stood for. But for the masses, it's a different thing. It's a, it's a general awakening and step forward in the process. So this organization, the UNIA, was massive and did have a big, a big base. But there were other elements that developed in this period too. When you have a mass politicization of a wide base of society, it doesn't just all go in one specific direction. So there was another organization that formed at this time, a much smaller one in 1919 called the African Blood Brotherhood. And the African Blood Brotherhood were born out of radical thinkers in Harlem, black thinkers, people like Cyril Briggs, Claude McKay, Harry Hayward. These people went on to form the core leadership of the African Blood Brotherhood. And they were a much smaller organization. They were focused underground, it was a bit secret. There's various different reports on how many members they actually had a few thousand here and there. And in their writings, also at the start, they also talk about the demand for a black nation state. And this is understandable. Again, we have to take the context of the period in which these people were living and writing and fighting where there was daily threats, physical threats against their safety. But within a few years, following the impact of the Russian Revolution in particular, you see these layers moving decisively towards socialism and towards the communist international as a whole. Part of what inspired these people these young black radical thinkers coming out of Harlem was the Bolsheviks and their fight against antisemitism, which they saw as comparable to the situation that black people were facing in America. And they saw what the Bolsheviks did in fighting against it in this mighty worker state that then comes to power, which had prominent Jewish leaders within it. And they were inspired by that. And they wanted the same thing to take place in America. So you have these different groups, these different ideas that are erupting at this time, the UNIA with Marcus Garvey on one side and also the African blood brotherhood on the other, which as I said was still small. And they kind of start off these two different organizations with somewhat friendly criticisms towards each other. You know, they kind of, I think even the African blood brotherhood, Claude McKay specifically said at one point that he still supported what Garvey was doing because it was politicizing the black masses on an important level. But as time goes on, a clearer class distinction develops between these organizations, a clearer class outlook in terms of what do they base themselves on. And as that distinction becomes clearer, the criticisms become less friendly. Garvey becomes much more anti-communist. I think Marcus Garvey actually accused Cyril Briggs of being secretly white at one point to really he's really stoking up the tensions because the African blood brotherhood did win over certain sections, certain people from that movement. But I would say this, as I said, this wasn't a theoretical dispute. It was the black nationalism and there was black nationalism, of course, the African blood brotherhood, there's black nationalism there. But I would say that the black nationalism of the African blood brotherhood had a different class content to what you saw with the Marcus Garvey organization. And they showed that they proved that they had a different class content because they all went on to join the Communist Party. They were internationalists inspired by the Russian Revolution and the Comintern and what the Comintern, the Communist International was trying to build across the world. And I would say that their internationalism came precisely from the fact that they had a much more proletarian base and consciously, they were concentrated on the proletariat and the working class. And so what you had was the entire core of the African blood brotherhood joins the Communist Party. And as I said, they're inspired by the Comintern. The fact that they joined the Communist Party is almost secondary. They saw what Lenin and the Bolsheviks were doing and they said, I want to be a part of that. Okay, so I've got to join the American Communist Party. This is the way forward. There's an essay by Cyril Briggs, one of the key leaders of the African blood brotherhood, where he's kind of responding to the western propaganda that was being put out, you know, damaging the Bolsheviks, saying they were evil people who are against democracy.  And he says, is this the democracy to which the spread of Bolshevism is a menace? Then may God advance the spread of Bolshevism throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, and in every country where oppression stalks. So that just gives you a flavor of the way in which these people influenced and the move and the move in which they were they were going. So the African blood brotherhood, they joined the Communist Party. But the Communist Party wasn't necessary. The Communist Party still had a I would say it had a bad position when it came to to black liberation when it came to racism, they had the wrong position at this time. The Communist Party in America had come out of a split with the Socialist Party, which under its previous leadership had taken a neutral stance on racism. It was this idea that they didn't need to do anything special to to advance the cause of black liberation. Socialism will deal with it once the revolution has has taken place. And this is wrong, that is not the way to approach the the liberation of any oppressed group. So the Communist Party initially did not take up in a significant way the black struggle and the struggle of the black masses. It is only after Lenin actually he directs the Communist Party in America to do so that we see a shift. In fact Lenin writes to the Communist Party in 1921 and he asks why do their reports not include anything to do with the black workers and the black masses? And he's asking them why is this not isn't this an important question for the class struggle in America? And he puts that question to them and encourages them says you need to consider this work. And in the next year there's a theses that's adopted on the Negro question on at the fourth Congress at the fourth Congress, which states very clearly this in 1922, the international struggle of the black race is a struggle against capitalism and imperialism. And the international black movement must be organized on that basis. It goes on the fourth Congress considers it essential to support every form of the black movement that either undermines or weakens capitalism or places barriers in the path of its further expansion. The Communist International will utilize all the means available to it to compel the trade unions to take black workers into their rights or whether I already exist in form to make special efforts to recruit blacks into the trade unions. And if this proves to be impossible the Communist International will organize blacks in their own trade unions and make special use of the United Front tactic in order to force the general unions to admit them. And this is very significant. This is the this is very advanced as well in terms of the struggle for for black liberation. And we have to understand what they're getting at the end there with this idea of black unions. We look when oppressed people or people from oppressed backgrounds enter into politics, they may well do so first through their own organizations, especially if and when the official labor movement is obstructing them, which in the case of America in the labor movement at that time it was doing so. And we are not opposed to that of course it would be entirely ridiculous to oppose black workers trying to organize and say you have to just you know passively wait for the labor movement to sort itself out that it's not the the position that you take in that situation. But the point is you have to look at what's happening on the ground and we have to look at the concrete conditions. What we are opposed to is taking specific examples of where it has been necessary and making a principle out of it and applying it to everything that's come afterwards. In fact it clearly states in that theses at the end if we are to organize black only unions it should be used as a tactic to force the general unions to admit them. And why is that? It's because it is not possible if you are a minority to form your own union to take on the bosses. Any more than the Bolsheviks would have been able to overthrow capitalism in Russia if they had based themselves on only one minority group at that time. And this is what the African blood brotherhood recognized and what I'm hopefully going to come on to show many black radical thinkers have recognized in the course of the struggle. Cyril Briggs said it himself he said the Negro population is just too small to fight by themselves. So kind of black only organization overthrow capitalism in America I think the answer is no. But we want to go on to kind of see how these ideas developed across the history of the black struggle in America and other places. Because at a certain point this idea this kind of embryonic idea that was always sort of there for a separate black nation state in a lot of the early ideas of black nationalism in America. At a certain point this idea becomes a key question for the communist movement. And after initially taking a weak approach a bad approach to the question of black workers in in 1928 the communist party in America they kind of transform and they go in the complete other direction and they adopt a policy of self-determination for the black belt. I'm going to go on to explain what they meant by this. The first thing is that the communist party when they changed their policy on black workers they didn't suddenly become a black nationalist organization. They were trying to in a kind of distorted way apply in some respects the method of Lenin. A lot of a lot of people take small writings small footnotes that Lenin has in different in different writings on different issues where he talks about black people in America as potentially being an oppressed nation and they take these small inklings and then exaggerate it to force a certain policy through. So they change their kind of position and they apply this this policy I would say in a formalistic and one-sided manner. Lenin dies in 1924 so this is a few years after after Lenin. And in 1928 they advocate that the black people constitute an oppressed nation within the nation and therefore the right self-determination applies. And it's not all down to Stalin. This is also when Stalin is kind of taking control of the common turn although he pushes you know the general opportunism throughout all of these parties. Other things Harry Hayward we can't detract from these people were key proponents in trying to push the party to adopt the black belt thesis. I think it's actually Hayward who puts it forward at the the common turn meeting which was actually opposed by some of the other black delegates but nevertheless it goes through and that's the policy that they adopt. So we can't retrospectively declare or project onto the masses right. Was there a demand for a mass demand for a nation state at that time? There probably was demand some small demand in different layers for some kind of nation state as I said these ideas were percolating around and clearly Marcus Garvey in a general sense and his organization did have a significant base. As I said earlier that movement Garvey's movement ended in in totally reactionary consequences. Very few people went to Africa under Garvey's movement and actually a lot of workers at that point were more interested in fighting for democratic rights within America rather than uprooting their lives and moving to somewhere far away in Africa. So what was wrong with the black belt thesis? Why is it formalistic? Why was it one-sided? The Communist Party went too far because they try to then specifically locate exactly where the black nation could be and say then to millions of black workers no this is where you must go. In fact I think they ended up having a different policy for the north and the south. It becomes completely detached from what was actually possible and what was necessary and progressive for the struggle at that moment conflating the right self-determination with immediate separation. So they kind of adopt this formalistic policy but at the same time they're obviously they've turned to the black workers in a significant way and so they do make inroads and a lot of black workers turn to the Communist Party and join them in this time. The Soviet Union at this period was a beacon of light to oppressed people all over the world and the Communist Party in America if you will kind of just rode that wave in a significant manner and that is how a lot of these people joined. However the Communist Party does not maintain this space in fact it completely loses it. The Communist Party again under the direction of Stalin it begins to move in a right-wing direction. From 1919 to 1934 the Communist Party in America had never supported the Republicans or the Democrats but then this begins to change and you see support for Roosevelt and the Democrats for the majority of his presidency. The Communist Party actually for a brief period dissolves itself and becomes a political association, a kind of a pressure group for the Democrats effectively. That gives you a mindset of the way in which the Communist Party had started to move. They reconstituted themselves two years later but it shows that their kind of tail-ending of the Democrats started a very long time ago and so many black communists left the party in complete disgust at the opportunism and the reformism that was developing amongst amongst them and so I think we can say that we can place part of the resurgence of black nationalism in the opportunism and the prejudices that existed within the Communist Party and the rot that existed in the Communist Party.  There's a reason why, I think Stokely Carmichael talks about black power and says yeah we can work with other you know radical white allies but we can't let them into the movement because there had been a whole host of people who had betrayed so-called white radical allies so we can understand where that desire then comes from. Now that was the position of the Communist Party, they kind of zigzag in an opportunist manner and then they eventually they take away the black belt thesis from their program and I want to say that Trotsky had a different approach at this time, he had a different approach to the Stalinist and the writings we have from Trotsky in this period from the early 1930s based on a discussion that he is having with some some followers of Trotsky's, the Trotskyists who are trying to counter pose the the communists, the Stalinists and the American Trotskyists they say to him, they write to him, they're pointing out, isn't there like opportunism evident in the Communist Party's position, isn't this wrong, we shouldn't be advocating for the separate nation-state aren't we internationalists where Marxists were against barriers you know shouldn't we be arguing in a different way. But Trotsky says like hold on a minute right, he says very clearly that the right to self-determination is a is a democratic demand and if it is the will of the black masses then we must actually fight against imperialism decisively so they can be free but he says if he says it's a question of their consciousness and he also says I know very little about the situation on the ground but what can we get from those writings is how Trotsky's trying to approach the situation first and foremost he's saying what is in the consciousness of the masses that is what we have to base ourselves on. So I think there are some people who they take those writings from Trotsky and they misunderstand a kind of a tentative idea based on extremely limited information and then take a mechanical view that we can just copy and paste well if Trotsky said in the 30s that a separate nation-state is possible then then we should still continue that today I don't think that's the case we take the method that he was using to understand what is the most progressive way what's the most revolutionary way to take things forward and that is the method that we take today when looking at the struggle for black workers and for black liberation but then coming into the 60s and 70s you have the civil rights movement in America which is credited with the removal obviously of formal racial barriers and the first thing to say is this era produced some of the most well known and respected fighters for black liberation but the civil rights movement was not an isolated struggle it didn't just appear out of the black masses alone there was a global struggle taking place in this period the 60s and 70s saw heightened class struggle as the capitalist boom ended and class struggle is firmly on the agenda in May 68 in Mexico the Troubles and to Vietnam the civil rights movement and the movement of the black masses in America is the exact is this is part of that entire process so we can't talk about black nationalism in the US and what it produced without paying special attention to Malcolm X now I think we can say Malcolm X in his time represented the most advanced element of the struggle for black liberation he was uncompromising unapologetic and a fighter and as a result he resonated with huge swathes of the black population you know he famously wanted to fight racism by any means necessary which was different to the middle class approach of certain black leaders who who wanted a kind of more softly softly way to do it but Malcolm X undoubtedly he was a he was a black nationalist for a large part of his life as a leader within the nation of Islam group he says at some point something along the lines of if you're afraid of black nationalism you're afraid of revolution that is how he saw it was a driving force for a huge part of his early years and I would say even at that point that black nationalism is not the same as the the black nationalism of Marcus Garvey it's still reflecting a different a different class in a different process because Malcolm X based his nationalism on the poor urban black population in in Harlem places like this he had no time for the for the black middle class and then eventually he splits with the nation of Islam over hypocrisy and corruption and various other things a lot happens but I want to concentrate very specifically on the last year of his life which is important for us to understand and study as Marxists because in the last year of his life he tours different African countries and it's in that in that movement in that process we see him move away from nationalism to an internationalist outlook and he says this is a man who you know spoke a lot about the white devil and fighting the whites in a very you know aggressive clear way which resonated with all the violence that's taking place but then towards the end of his life he says is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a racial conflict of black against white or as purely an American problem we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor the exploited against the exploiters there's another there's another even better quote in an interview with a socialist magazine again in the last year of his life who when he was asked about his tour of African countries and by the way it's when he's touring his African countries he meets a he meets a revolutionary I can't remember which country it's a country in North Africa who he describes as white and he says I'm kind of faced with this white revolution in thinking but this guy's also fighting for revolution and it starts to make him think in a slightly different way and he says I had to do a lot of thinking and reappraising of my definition of black nationalism he says can we sum up the solution to the problems confronting our people as black nationalism then he leaves it open and then he says and if you've noticed I haven't been using the expression for several months so consciously he starts to not even use the term black nationalism he forms a different organization when he comes back from Africa in America in 1964 it was called the Organization for Afro-American Unity and at the opening rally of that organization he says I haven't changed I just see things on a broader scale we nationalists used to think we were militant we were just dogmatic it didn't bring us anything now I know it's smarter to say you're going to shoot a man for what he is doing to you than because he is white now this is a clear departure and a clear transformation in the way in which he's approaching the question and and what happened Malcolm X's ideas evolved on the basis of viewing the struggle from an internationalist perspective and how did he reach that internationalism is because he was already based in a much more proletarian outlook the two things are connected and I think now we can return to what the communist international theses said in 1922 they said it's the task of the communist international to show blacks that they are not the only people that suffer the oppression of imperialism and capitalism the workers and peasants of Europe Asia and America are also victims of imperialist exploiters in India and China in Iran and Turkey and Egypt and Morocco the oppressed colored people are mounting a heroic defense against the imperialist exploiters these people are rising up against the same outrages that drive blacks to fury racial oppression social and economic inequality intensive exploitation in industry these people are fighting for the same goals as blacks for political economic and social liberation and equality and that is what Malcolm X was beginning to understand I can't stand hearing tell you that Malcolm X was a was a committed Marxist or anything like this that would be wrong all I can do is use his words and his life to show that a process was taking place where he was moving towards a class outlook a proletarian outlook and an internationalist one which is different from nationalism and and he's obviously he's assassinated then and that's not a coincidence that a lot of these thinkers that the more radical they become they are assassinated and one year after Malcolm X is assassinated the Black Panther Party for self-defense is set up Malcolm X had unleashed a revolutionary kind of desire amongst the Black youth in particular I think we can say the Black Panther Party took up the the the baton if you want in the best traditions of Malcolm X the Black Panthers were also uncompromising and they knew the seriousness of their struggle it wasn't a kind of an easy thing that they were doing on the side Huey Newton in his autobiography this book which is called revolutionary suicide and it's called that because they recognize that you might die if you take up this struggle but they were willing to give everything they had to do so and I think just as a side the current Black Lives Matter's leaders if we can even identify them as leaders pale in comparison to what that period had produced and the attitude and the seriousness of which they approached it so I've said Malcolm X in one man his journey from nationalism to internationalism we saw that take place but we also see the same process amongst the Black Panthers and their approach and their position in fact I would say you can see that process even from the earliest days in terms of the logic of what they were trying to fight for you can see that process in the 10 point program that the Black Panther Party produced the Black Panther Party's program it starts saying you know we want freedom we want power to determine the destiny of our Black and oppressed communities it starts off by saying we want jobs we want control for our community for Black people specifically but then as you move on through point one two three four it starts to widen out to more oppressed people and they say we want completely free healthcare for all Black and oppressed people we want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people other people of color all oppressed people in the United States which includes the poor whites we want an immediate end to all wars of aggression that's not even just to do with America and it goes on and on and on and the final point point number 10 they say we want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people's community control of modern technology so in the space of one single program there's a movement from democratic demands to the desire for a planned economy effectively and people's control a socialist planned economy even the embryonic idea that's within that people's control over clothes, housing, bread, education, infrastructure, industry we're seeing a logical process develop within that program and this is a key feature of a lot of Black nationalist movements and nationalist movements in general in the way that they progress what makes the nationalism of the oppressed of oppressed people in society what makes the nationalism of the oppressed progressive is the class content because there is a reactionary side to nationalism a reactionary side to nationalism which comes from a nationalism that just looks at all classes in society as one big block and that's not how we look at it but the best elements within nationalist movements have also recognised that Fred Hampton recognised that the Black vanguard needs to be united with the rest of the working class and there will be a Black vanguard that develops and was developing Trotsky as early as the 20s and the 30s he says and he's writing to Claude McKay, Claude McKay by the way who also left the Communist Party in America in complete disgust at Stalinism he goes on to departure Marxism entirely but actually a lot of Black radicals do this on the basis of the betrayals of Stalinism and Claude McKay asked Trotsky if they could form a Black section in the Red Army and Trotsky responds and says okay you know let's see what can take place but Trotsky when writing to Claude McKay says is of the utmost importance today immediately to have a number of enlightened young self-sacrificing Negroes however small their number filled with enthusiasm for raising the material and moral level of the great mass of Negroes and at the same time mentally capable of grasping the identity of interests and the destiny of the Negro masses with those of the masses of the whole world and in the first place with the destiny of the European working class that is the approach that we have to take so as I said at the start Black nationalist in in the US have also strongly identified with the colonial revolutions and when you talk about Black nationalism there can be a lot of overlap and sometimes confusion I would say on what you were speaking about but we can't conflate it all into one thing I think Black I think we can say Black nationalism is quite specifically a US phenomenon in terms of where it came from and how it's developed and the colonial revolution were different nonetheless these Black radicals were drawn to the struggles if you're a young Black person in America and you want to fight against capitalism and you see wars of independence in Angola and Algeria and all these countries of course you identify with that struggle and want to be a part of it because the colonial revolutions had an enormous impact not just as an inspiration for what a movement could be but inspiration for what a different society could look like all together millions of people were involved in throwing off the shackles of imperialism these movements shook the foundations of imperialism and therefore capitalism within Africa and in some countries what came out of this was different parties different leaders who kind of took up this banner in various ways and the masses learned through the struggle there was a first round of decolonization after World War II where colonial administrations were replaced with kind of pro-imperialist governments bourgeois governments and this drove the anti-colonial movement further to the left highlighting that formal independence was not synonymous with genuine emancipation in Ethiopia in Somalia in Burkina Faso they abolished capitalism these movements were moving to the left very very quickly and you have certain leaders that came out of this obviously in Krumah, in Ghana, Turei, in Guinea, French Guinea, Lumumba, in Congo all of these kind of anti-imperialist figures who who were moving towards the left and in some places were even nationalizing huge swathes of industry what happened was in the fight against colonialism the struggle for what were democratic reforms became a struggle against capitalism and the imperialists were very concerned about this they were worried that national liberation struggles could mutate into fully anti-capitalist socialist revolutions they were they were conscious of that and some figures even had that as their aim and they were trying to move in that direction on the on the independence side I mean but they weren't sure how to get then I just want to highlight one example which was the experience of Amil Kharkabral who was a independence leader in Guinea-Bissau he kind of went on this journey and his organization called for the nationalization of all major enterprises the establishment of a planned economy fighting for socialism and he very clearly understood the need and the role of the working class the working class at this stage in this country were were tiny very very very small the peasantry were a much larger force as was the case in many other African countries at that time and Kharkabral says himself the peasantry are not a revolutionary force he said they're not revolutionary but they're a physical force and we have to use them in his writings he says you might be surprised that I'm saying they're not revolutionary given that we've based a large part of our struggle on the peasantry that we need them but he says quite clearly from a political point of view they aren't a revolutionary force but a physical one and he knew that there needed to be a working class that could lead a process in in the country in order to actually solve the problems of capitalism solve the problems of imperialism those contradictions the task of solving the these issues falls on the shoulders of the working class agrarian national and political emancipation that can only take place through the socialist revolution and Khabral also with this understanding of the working class and this proletarian outlook is what also leads into his genuinely internationalist approach to the struggle and and to fight in colonialism he said we have always clearly proclaimed that we never confuse the people of Portugal with Portuguese colonialism and this thinking was very dangerous to the imperialists because he even directly appealed to the Portuguese soldiers that were placed in Guinea-Bissau to try and turn them against Portugal he said to them he wrote Portuguese soldiers NCOs and officers you know that your people who must struggle for freedom and democracy in their own land need your help your families who mostly belong to the poor classes of Portugal are longing for your return in order to ensure their future and the future of your father's mother's sister's bride's sons and daughters it is essential to act he says give up serving as tools of imperialism refuse to take up arms against the freedom and independence of a peaceful people bravely refuse to fight against our people and he goes on and on with various other things and he says long live the peace friendship and cooperation between all peoples this is obviously very dangerous for the imperialists and that thinking and he was successful and he was correct in taking that approach in April 1974 Khabral is unfortunately also assassinated there's a common theme in a lot of these revolutions in Africa the imperialists are kind of somewhat involved but also other kind of political enemies and a year after Khabral is killed a left-wing army officers stage an uprising in Portugal which starts the Carnation Revolution and that revolution in Portugal is what ends the colonial war and the wars that were taking place and ensures the independence of Portuguese colonies the officers uprising directly drew inspiration from the struggle that was already taking place in Guinea-Bissau and directly from his approach and the approach that his organization took at that time and this is why we say revolution in the west is of vital importance to these struggles internationalism on a proletarian on a proletarian basis Khabral even says quite clearly we think there is something wrong with the simple interpretation of the national liberation movement as a revolutionary trend and it's because he could see and was predicting the problems that could take place after the colonial revolutions he explains that the objective of the imperialists is to create a new bourgeoisie within these countries and if they don't take that problem seriously then we will see the restoration of capitalism these countries in Africa they used to be dominated by just one colonial power whether it was Britain or Portugal or France and now they are jointly exploited by world trade as a whole you could say that they are even more enslaved than they were before because of the whole forces of world imperialism capitalism are there ready at their doorstep so these incredible revolutions could only go so far on their own not because there was a problem with the black masses or there was no desire to fight it's the same in the case of many other revolutions that have taken place that have ultimately ended isolated in the case of Russia and various other other countries the finest Marxist leadership cannot just save you from the material conditions that are forced in front of you in those in those countries so we say revolution has to be international not just in a symbolic way not just a kind of feeble African leaders today all talk about pan-Africanism it's a meaningless term to them it's nonsense and they use it as a cover for their policies they use it as a cover for being shells of imperialism you can kick imperialism formally out of your country but it's not enough to do it on just that basis this is exactly what happened in Congo with Lumumba they got rid of Belgium Belgium tries to kind of cause more problems in Congo by funding and and helping a kind of secessionist group who are trying to destabilize the new independent government and Lumumba called on the UN to help the UN an emblem of world imperialism did the UN help no the UN didn't help they took control of communications they blocked Soviet aid they helped the people trying to destabilize the government it's not enough to just get rid of formal independence so what what do we do about world imperialism or US imperialism or Belgium imperialism how do we overthrow that well we need the workers in those countries to up to to to get rid of their own ruling classes the two things are entirely connected this brings us back full circle what is the most reactionary force on the planet it's probably US imperialism and what can stop it it has to be the American working class and what does that require it requires the utmost unity of the American working class i need to come to an end because i've gone over time but i want to say i want to repeat something that was said yesterday that the purpose of Marxism is to make conscious the unconscious striving of the working class for power racism racism is a poison that is consciously used by the ruling class to divide workers Marx said very clearly in 1868 and sorry 1868 1866 he said labor in the white skin cannot emancipate itself where in the black skin it is branded that is how we understand it we need to be united to take things forward however it is true that the segregation the division the chauvinism of the labor movement and the communist movement has forced black workers to organize in many cases on their own terms first and black nationalism came out of that process but every time the black proletariat has made an organization of its own without Marxist telling it to do so it has turned to the rest of the working class because the working class as a whole strives towards unity and the best layers have always understood that the best layers of nationalist movements have gone explicitly or implicitly towards Marxism and what we're saying is make that explicit make that explicit black nationalism has played a role in the history of black struggle but it has not yet succeeded many people take up the banner of black nationalism today including the black bourgeoisie which makes the class question even more paramount and even more important and we say let's take the best elements we don't have to take everything with us if the most revolutionary elements of black nationalism have been those who base themselves on the proletariat and turn outwards then it is the job of Marxist to continue that process what should we be saying to radicalized young black people today is it to set up exclusive black only organizations even though they have never been capable of taking the masses forward in a significant way in the way that real really causes material change it has to be to build a revolutionary party that unites the best layers the vanguard has always moved towards class independence and class unity and that is the tradition that we stand on that is the tradition the tradition of Lenin and that has been confirmed over the last 100 years


Good day, everybody. This is Dr. Sanjay Asaniya, Professor, Department Chair. This is going to be a demonstration of the lateral cervical region. It's also called the posterior triangle of the neck. This is a supine cadaver. We are showing the right side. We are narrating from the right side. So first, let's take a look at the boundaries of the lateral cervical region. This is the posterior boundary. It is formed by the disening fibers of the trapezius. The disening fibers, as you know, they take origin from the medial part of the superior nuclei and the fibers, they descend down. And we can see the fibers coming down here. And they get inserted onto the chromium process and the clavicle here. This is the posterior boundary. Coming to the anterior boundary, we have this muscle here. This is the sternocleidomastoid, which takes origin by means of two heads. The sternal head takes origin from the mammogram sterni and the clavicular head, which has been removed here because it was destroyed during the process of embalming, takes origin from the clavicle and the two, then go up like this. And they get inserted onto the mastoid process and to the lateral half of the superior nuclei. So this is the medial anterior boundary of the lateral cervical region. The base of the lateral cervical region is this portion here, the middle one third of the clavicle. So this is the whole lateral cervical region, also called the posterior triangle of the neck. The apex of the triangle is where the trapezius meets with the insertion of the sternocleidomastoid. Coming to the roof, the roof was bridged over by one of the layers of deep fascia of the neck. The deep cervical fascia, that is called the investing layer of the deep cervical fascia. The investing layer of deep cervical fascia, it splits to enclose the trapezius. Then it bridges over like this and then again it splits to enclose the sternocleidomastoid. So therefore the roof was formed by the investing layer of deep cervical fascia. Coming to the floor, the floor was covered by yet another layer of deep cervical fascia and that is called the pre-vertebral layer of deep cervical fascia. It was covering these muscles. Once we removed it, what are the muscles that we see in the floor? First of all we see this muscle here. This is the splenius capitis. The next muscle that we see here is this one. This is the levator scapulae. The third muscle that we see is this one. This is the scaliness posterior. The fourth muscle that we see is this one here. This is the scaliness medius. And finally we see a little bit of another muscle here. This is the scaliness anterior. So these are the muscles which form the floor of the lateral cervical region. That brings me to one important point in the floor itself. Now if you look closely, between the scaliness medius muscle and the scaliness anterior muscle, there is a triangular space here. This triangular space is called the scalene triangle because the scaliness medius and the scaliness anterior, both of them get inserted onto the surface of the first rib, which is behind the clavicle. So therefore there is a small triangular space and that is called the scalene triangle. This scalene triangle is clinically very important because passing through the scalene triangle are these structures. Number one, we can see these are the trunks of the brachial plexus. These can get entrapped in the scalene triangle producing what is known as scalene syndrome. Also passing through the scalene triangle is this artery here. I'm going to trace the artery from the axilla. This is the axillary artery. Once the axillary artery crosses the first rib, it becomes known as the subclavian artery. This is the third part of the subclavian artery which is also passing through the scalene triangle. This can also get entrapped in the scalene triangle as part of the scalene syndrome which is a part of a bigger syndrome called the costoclavicular syndrome. So all these things are happening in the floor of the lateral cervical region. Now let's take a look at the contents of the lateral cervical region. First of all, if you look, I have lifted up this bundle of nerves here. These bundle of nerves is actually the cervical plexus. Most specifically the cutaneous branches of the cervical plexus. We have purposely not separated them out because I want to show an important clinical correlation here. You notice that most of these nerves are coming out from here behind the posterior border of the sternocleomastoid. Here we have got four nerves. Great auricular, lesser occipital, transverse cervical and supraclavicular. So all these, they come out approximately in this region of the posterior border of the sternocleomastoid. And this region is referred to as the nerve point of the neck.  That's why this is called the nerve point of the neck. One way of determining the nerve point of the neck, I've already told you, it is the posterior border of the sternocleomastoid, the midpoint. Another way of determining the nerve point is if you feel the mastoid process here and if you drop a vertical line to the middle of the cervical, the midpoint of that line is also approximately the nerve point of the neck. Okay. The next structure that we see is this nerve here. This is the spinal accessory nerve, CN11. The CN11, it comes from the neck. And we can see the proximal part of the CN11 here. It comes out through the jugular ferramen. It crosses in front of the internal jugular vein. Then it goes under the sternocleomastoid. It supplies the sternocleomastoid and then it emerges from behind to the sternocleomastoid. And then it runs on the surface of the levator scapulae muscle. And then it disappears under the trapezius muscle and it supplies the trapezius muscle. So therefore this is the CN11. CN11 is the nerve supply of both these muscles, sternocleomastoid and trapezius. That's why when we have troticolus, spasmodic troticolus, we have spasm of both sternocleomastoid and trapezius. This CN11 has communications from C2-3 of the cervical plexus, which are proprioceptive to this trapezius. This CN11, it can get injured in surgery of the lateral cervical region, like for example removing cervical lymph nodes, secondary deposits. It can also injure in stab injury or conch shot injury, in which case there will be paralysis of the trapezius muscle. So this is the spinal accessory nerve. That's the next content. Now let's take a look at this structure here. This is the inferior belly of the omohiad muscle. This takes origin from the supirebord of the scapula and it goes across like this. And it is attached by means of patient's sling to the clavicle ear, which we have removed and then it goes under the sternocleomastoid and the supirebelly goes in the anterior triangle of the neck. This inferior belly of the omohiad divides the lateral cervical region into two parts and we can see one part here and another part above. The lower portion is called the subclavian triangle. It's also called the omoclavicular triangle because one border is formed by the omohiad or the other border is formed by the clavicle. This also called the subclavian triangle because the third part of the subclavian artery is located here. And this larger portion of the lateral cervical region is called the occipital triangle because at the apex of this lateral cervical region will pass the occipital artery, which is a branch of the external carotid artery and will supply the scapula. The next structure which I will draw your attention to, it is not very clearly demonstrated in this particular cadaver is this one here. This is the remnant of the external jugular vein. In this particular cadaver the external jugular vein was very small as you can see here. It is formed by the union of the posterior particular vein and the posterior division of the retromannabular vein. This is the parotid gland. But in this cadaver all those classical anatomical description does not apply. So this is the remnant of the external jugular vein. This runs on the surface of the sternocleidomastoid and then it pierces the investing layer of the deep cervical fascia and then it opens into the subclavian vein. So this is another content of the lateral cervical region. The next structure which I will draw your attention to is this nerve here. This is the phrenic nerve. The phrenic nerve is also a branch of the cervical plexus. But unlike the other branches, this is a mixed nerve. C345. This runs on the surface of the scalyneus anterior muscle and this is the scalyneus anterior muscle as I told you earlier. And it runs like this. It goes behind the subclavian vein. This is the axillary vein which comes continuous as the subclavian vein. It runs behind the subclavian vein and then it enters into the thorax. It supplies the fibrospericardium and it goes and supplies the diaphragm. So this is the phrenic nerve. This phrenic nerve may sometimes have an axillary phrenic nerve which comes from the nerve to the subclavius. This is the subclavius muscle. And that axillary phrenic nerve goes in front of the subclavian vein and it can entrap the subclavian vein between the main phrenic nerve and the axillary phrenic nerve. But that is not a very common problem. So that's another structure which I wanted to draw your attention to. So these are the points which I wanted to show you in the lateral cervical region. The boundaries, the roof, the floor, the clinical correlations and the contents of the lateral cervical region. Thank you very much for watching. Dr. Sanjay Sanyal signing off. Mr. Ken Dahlkambar batch is the camera person. If you have any questions or comments, please put them in the comment section below. Have a nice day. Please like and subscribe.