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Reed frames left identity politics as this Clintonite plot—when in reality, nobody is happier to see the most visible cohort of socialists fumble the identity question than libs, who constantly exploit this seam to make socialists look like out of touch reductionists.
Meanwhile, the difference between the anti-socialist think pieces of 2016 and @miguelxsalazar’s article is that these critiques are coming from within. We’re in DSA; we pay dues; we’re socialists; we’ve read the same books as you...and we still think you’re screwing up.
Many POC agree with Reed/Sunkara/Haider, all of whom are POC themselves. And that’s great!
But reflexively trotting out POC when your org is called racially problematic reminds me of the “Here Are 60 Women I Definitely Didn’t Grope” response to an assault allegation.
But reflexively trotting out POC when your org is called racially problematic reminds me of the “Here Are 60 Women I Definitely Didn’t Grope” response to an assault allegation.
I’m not going to sit here and say that comrades who disagree with me on this are “not really socialists.” That’s a childish tendency that the left could use a lot less of. The point I want to make is a lot more direct:
Namely, that a cohort in DSA is taking up all the oxygen on the left with a strategy that has proven to be no match for the ways that many liberals cynically deploy “diversity” to reproduce capitalism. As long as we continue to get this question wrong, we’re going to keep losing.
For instance...if you talk more about the vast liberal conspiracy against Bernie than you talk about his legitimate issues (both real & perceived) with appealing to Black voters, it tells me that you’d rather be ‘right’ than win. I don’t go for that.
I want us to win. To do that, we have to acknowledge where we’re weak. This process will improve us. On the other hand—smearing left journalists who give voice to long-fomenting internal struggles, and writing off our own members as Clintonite infiltrators? Come on man. Come on.
Anyway, I know the white-dominated left likes to make POC who disagree with the anti-intersectional orthodoxy pass a brown paper bag test. So eat this: I was a Bernie delegate in 2016. My senior thesis at UW was a 220-pg. biography of Marx. I joined DSA on 1/4/2017.
So do I get to have opinions, or no?
