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A Call for Radical Humanism: the Left Needs to Return to Class Analyses of Power
Vigo, Julian
http://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/01/a-call-for-radical-humanism-the-left-needs-to-return-to-class-analyses-of-power/Date Written: 2020-07-01 Publisher: CounterPunch Year Published: 2020 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX24109 In tackling police violence and other social inequities rampant throughout the world today, we must address the underlying problems and not give overdue focus to the symptoms of the problems. For instance, we already know that class and not race is what determines who is affected most by institutional injustices, from the police murders of George Floyd to Tony Timpa to the the mass incarceration rates of the poor. Abstract: - Excerpt: It is in capitalism’s interest that we are all standing about the public square screaming about statues we don’t like rather than clamor for real reform of our governments. Indeed, much of the theory emanating from American higher education of the last thirty years has obtusely avoided discussing class while instead addressing representation, not participation. Just as the left has abandoned discussing class in favor of focussing upon symbolism and representation, political action of recent years has centered on the most superficial changes from language to public imagery. The actual stuff of inequality which engages people’s ability to pay bills, to eat, and to pay rent, has been unsurprisingly absent from both academia and the recent calls to get white people to atone for their sins. ... the answer to my original question is a rephrasing of my original question: how can those of us on the left live with ourselves creating more divisions in fighting racism by manipulating what are fundamentally class issues of poverty and class empowerment? The minute we think that “white people” are like this and “black people” like that we have lost the plot. And it is no surprise that Black Lives Matter has similarly pitched a corporate message to Americans and to funders such as George Soros, Rob McKay, and other Democracy Alliance donors have given millions to groups associated with the movement (now over $133 million). These people have successfully enacted a cult whereby cheap one-off confessions and checks written out to BLM is the penitence one pays for the crimes of the father. Black Lives Matter has become a capitalist free-for-all with other companies known for unethical labor practices like Reebok which has recently virtue signaled whilst calling out CrossFit for not having sympathized deeply enough with BLM. This in addition to the organization’s founders having cashed in to the tune of $100 million from the Ford Foundation in 2017 along with most all of BLM’s co-founders having developed very close ties to various corporations, foundations, academic institutions and government-sponsored agencies. In 2016, Opal Tometi even spoke at the Aspen Institute which has strong ties to the military. So much for defunding the police if you are down with supporting the military. What social theaters like DiAngelo’s book and Black Lives Matter prove is that race relations in the US have now become part of a managerial class of elites who can just as easily control the media message as well as any other corporate-sponsored speaker. Just spin a message, package it within a Christian orthodoxy, give talks at think tanks closely aligned with the Department of Defense, and the world is yours. Who cares about addressing the causes of racism or even mentioning the increasing poverty in the US when the politics of race reductionism has created a new job specialty, loads of new funding sources, and the inspiration for five-minute spots on CNN about this new and improved “war on racism.” Yet there is no way to win a “war” which is poised upon ideological purity whereby only the self can battle bigotry. In the end, the racism being fought by both DiAngelo and BLM is precisely a narcissistic and neoliberal form of whitewashing structural inequalities through the name-and-blame game whereby the more woke points scored, the least racist the subject is. Hence this is the best game in town for corporations and politicians Subject Headings |