Tag Archives: intersectionality

(White/Cis/Het/Male) Class-first Politics

Politics, Uncategorized, , ,

So I’m reading this one tweetstorm from an Irish venture capitalist on how to take back power from conservative and white nationalist politics.

Sounds like an interesting thread, but then I see this:

“Let me tell you what you can’t defend: illegal immigrants, Muslim immigration, most identity politics, pronoun-style feminism, world peace.”….

“Things you cannot attack: foreign wars, the police, mass surveillance, 1984-style use of the internet, and expect key escrow and worse.”…..

“All that territory is ceded. There’s simply no way a right wing government will tolerate mass outcry about those issues, or serious dissent.”

Earlier in the thread, he suggests exploiting fault lines between Confederate and Christian demographics and appealing to the latter because they’re the largest demographic in this country. Later in the thread, he suggests the defense of abortion access should be the best cause around which the center and left should rally.

So, if I’m reading this right, intersectional social justice should be put on hold or outright discarded from the program until left-wing politics return to electoral vogue.

Outcry over deaths of unarmed PoC at the hands of police will have to be muted because far-right government. Defense of LGBT employment and public accommodations access will be extremely lowkey because far-right government. Illegal immigration, DREAMers and war refugees will take several way-in-the-back seats because far-right government. Diversity, visibility and empowerment of historically-marginalized demographics in corporate/government/nonprofit boardrooms and employment will be de-prioritized because far-right government. Racial anything – gerrymandering, voter suppression, overpolicing – will be placed on the backburner because far-right government.

But that’s all “identity politics” of the minority. It’s all expendable and trifling to the majority’s fight.

 

#Intersectionality means that, even as an African-American gay male, I’m still privileged in many ways, such as being a natural-born citizen of the U.S., having a college degree, being born into a military family, and having a love for reading at an early age. It’s not something to apologize for, but something to extend to those who have less.

Not Surprised by #Ferguson or #Occupy

Politics, Rants, To Export, , , , , , , , , , ,

“A system cannot fail those it was never built to protect”.

– W.E.B. DuBois

As I see how the demonstrating public lashed out in Ferguson against the state of their community, and I see the prevailing national reaction to the local reaction – “violence/looting/burning buildings isn’t the answer”, I think back to #Occupy 2011.

I remember the police abuses of young white Occupy protesters, from New York to California. I remember how the police were defended by those who decried Occupy as “dirty”, “lazy” “thugs” and “trust-fund babies”.

I remember how they were exceptionally othered by those who are incredibly addicted to their own comforts and distance.

I remember the gross class resentment against college students, from people in a likely-similar income bracket as those protesting. I remember some bastard who screamed “stop raping people!” for his online fans’ shits and giggles.

And when Zucotti Park was forcibly cleared, signifying a formal end to the Occupy period, the police were cheered for “bringing law and order back to the streets” and “allowing businesses to function again”.

That moment was about class inequality. This moment – Ferguson – was about racial inequality.

And yet the militarized police, once again, show their ugly head. And their groupies itch for the police to save them from those who would “bring down America” through upsetting the status quo.

It was Martin Luther King, Jr., who said it best, so long ago:

And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

Most concerned about tranquility. Damn the urban peasants, especially those “colored” ones. Damn the college students. “Get out of our country if you don’t like it.”

The “Founding Fathers'” Revolution can’t repeated with these defenders of the status quo. Another Constitution can’t be drafted with these people.

The folks who defend police conduct toward unarmed protesters/AAs are likely the same folks who decry jackbooted government thugs elsewhere. I find this comfort for hyperviolent forces of the favored status quo to be funny, in a gallows-humor kind of way.

Stop inconveniencing the thugs in black and blue. Stop inconveniencing their slavish, status-quo-defending groupies. Stop disrupting the flow of traffic, of capital, of bigoted values, of firearms, of military training.

Worship our agents. Accept your inferiority. Do what we tell you. Appear how we want you to appear. Never resist us.

Then tell yourself: I AM FREE.