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Why Black Lives Matter Can't be Co-opted
Reed, Adolph Jr.
http://nonsite.org/why-black-lives-matter-cant-be-co-opted/Date Written: 2021-07-23 Publisher: Nonsite Year Published: 2021 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX24438 Black Lives Matter BLM never was and never had the potential to be what people like this fantasized that it was. Abstract: - Excerpt: I think it’s imperative as well that we accept and not waver from an understanding that there’s no splitting the difference between a) what’s called anti-racism, the fundamentally brokerage, petition politics of racial representation, which assumes as it has ever since Booker Washington, that the pertinent locus of political agency for advancing “black interests” is the ruling class, which is therefore antiracism’s natural ally, and which guarantees that antiracist politics is thus by definition a politics fully incorporated within neoliberalism, and b) an anti-capitalist politics centered on the broad working class. Those who at this point want to hang onto the fantasy that BLM is a radical force either want to save face or preserve a market share or career trajectory. They aren’t allies; they aren’t winnable. They’re class enemies. ... BLM activists have consistently attacked the left since at least 2015 in the U.S., and most conspicuously they’ve taken aim at Bernie Sanders, just as have the neoliberal Democrats. And the form of the attack on Sanders in particular was the race hustler’s shakedown, both in 2016 and 2020, which is also consistent with the reactionary politics of racial representation. They’ve been antagonistic to working-class solidarity and to universalist social democracy, and they’ve always taken money from the bourgeoisie. And their counter-solidaristic political agendas—defund the police, the 1619 Project, elevation of challenging disparities over broadly redistributive initiatives, etc.—have only inflamed the reactionaries and done little or nothing concrete for us. The time is too perilous to indulge calls to treat this politics as something it is not. Subject Headings |