“Capitalism Won’t Save Black People”
khalid kamau was elected to the South Fulton, Georgia, city council in 2017. In an interview, he discusses the ties between racism and capitalism and why socialism shouldn't be written off as a white movement.
Scott Heins
In 2017, khalid kamau ran for City Council of South Fulton, Georgia, and won in a landslide. An organizer turned city leader, kamau sees elected office as a weapon in the fight against the myriad injustices facing his city, which is 89 percent black. In speeches, he ties racial justice to anti-capitalism.
khalid’s city council campaign was endorsed and supported by the Democratic Socialists of America’s Metro Atlanta chapter, and he sees DSA as the country’s “most serious socialist organization.” At the DSA’s 2019 national convention in Atlanta, khalid was the first speaker on the program. He opened with a blistering left critique of the Georgia Democratic Party, called for defunding the police, and closed by inviting his comrades to a South Fulton block party and screening of Boyz n the Hood.
When I asked him what made democratic socialism his chosen political path, he delivered a call for Afrosocialism.
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