Against the Grain – January 19, 2011
Benita Roth contends that a New Left ethos of “organizing one’s own,” and not racism, explains why white feminists and feminist women of color did not build cross-racial coalitions in the 1960s and 70s.

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Acclaimed program of ideas, in-depth analysis, and commentary on a variety of matters—political, economic, social, and cultural—important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. Against the Grain is co-produced and co-hosted by Sasha Lilley and C. S. Soong.
Benita Roth contends that a New Left ethos of “organizing one’s own,” and not racism, explains why white feminists and feminist women of color did not build cross-racial coalitions in the 1960s and 70s.
Political scientist Mona El-Ghobashy discusses the recent parliamentary elections in Egypt–the second biggest recipient of U.S. military aid–and the social movements roiling the economic powerhouse of the Middle East.
Keramet Reiter calls supermax prisons “the black hole” in this nation’s system of prisons and punishment: So little is known about them, and yet supermax confinement is the most extreme form of punishment next to the death penalty.
Christina Kiaer, author of “Imagine No Possessions: The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism,” speaks with Sasha Lilley about the attempt to rethink the objects of daily life in a post-capitalist society by the avant-garde in the early Soviet Union.
Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof uses the life and times of the Black Puerto Rican activist Arturo Schomburg to examine a host of issues and struggles around race, colonialism, Black-Latino relations, and the writing of history.
A new book by former health insurance executive Wendell Potter blows the whistle on how health insurers spread disinformation, flout regulations, imperil their customers, and skew political debate.
In her new book “Black and Green,” Kiran Asher challenges conventional notions of how capitalist development and grassroots resistance operate in the Global South.
In his book “Why I Am Not a Scientist,” the anthropologist Jonathan Marks confronts “genohype” — the trumpeting of the power of genetics to explain human attributes and behavior.
Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg discuss their book “Righteous Dopefiend,” which both records the experiences of homeless heroin injectors in San Francisco and analyzes the structural forces that shape their lives.