by Michael Guillén

In my first political science class at San Francisco State University in the mid-’70s, my professor argued that without practicing solidarity with the struggles of disempowered people, political change could never be effected.  Solidarity became the introductory lynchpin to an engaged activism that resisted pluralistic efforts to divide and conquer.  “Unless you can feel solidarity with the cultural critiques proposed in Malcolm X’s autobiography and the prison letters of George Jackson,” my professor insisted, “you will never understand the plight of Black people in the United States.”  Continue reading →