September 26, 2017

Well, you're half right anyway

You write:

The arrogance of ANY white person to pontificate about racism AT ALL should astound you.

Like you, I am offended when white folks tell me that racism is just one form of the economic oppression suffered by all people and that, if we just correct economic injustice, all will be well. I am ALSO offended when white folks tell me that people who look like me don't think economic injustice is a top priority.

Racism is housed in the "evolved" DNA of white people who have assured each other for thousands of years that they are not merely intellectually, morally, and spiritually superior to us, but genetically superior to us. It is that inbred ideology that gives them the "moral freedom" to treat us like chattel, beat us, rape us, lynch us, imprison us, execute us, and, yes, steal from us. It is, however, either an unawareness of historical fact, or the willingness to sacrifice fact for the sake of a political talking point, to not admit that economic oppression (read: capitalism) - together with an intrinsically racist criminal justice system - are the new masters' primary tools for maintaining a chainless slavery.

This dismissing of the economic justice issues we face is particularly troubling for me because I speak to groups of young people living in urban areas a lot and a majority, in my opinion a substantial majority, of them are unconvinced that we (meaning those of us trying to fire them up about the Democratic Party) really give a shit about social justice issues because the folks who are telling them we do care won't speak out forcefully about things that affect their everyday lives like the racial and cultural genocide being perpetrated through: every level of the criminal justice system; and, a social support network that has trapped them in despair. (Heck, it wasn't until Trump turned it into a political flashpoint we could use against Republicans that many in the DU community started showing support for Colin Kaepernick.)

When we aren't talking about economic oppression and they don't believe we care about social justice issues, we are losing needed votes. If you don't believe me, take a moment to compare turnout in Wayne County Michigan (where we make up an overwhelming majority of the registered voters) in 2012 and 2016. We lost Michigan by around 10,000 votes, statewide. In 2012, President Obama's so-called "bad" year, more than 60,000 more people got out and voted Democratic than voted for us in 2016.

The Democratic Party can't afford to lose 60,000 votes. If anyone thinks that CLAIMING that this party stands for social justice is working at the ballot box while we have major party spokespeople supporting DA Bob McCulloch's grand jury whitewash of the murder of Michael Brown, while our party's office holders won't prosecute anyone participating in this epidemic of blue on black murder (not even the f'n murder of a child, Tamir Rice), and while our cities are dying as unbridled capitalism leaves them to rot, they need to think again.

Sure, 90+% of us who do show up and vote will vote for Democratic Party candidates (e.g., I am black but I am also a Marxist. I have voted in every election at every level beginning 1972, BUT I have never voted for anyone but the Democrat in a general election in my entire life) because we actually suffer when Republicans win, but 60,000 less Democratic voters in Wayne County is a message to those who think that we can keep on doing what we did in 2016 and still win.

Yea, white people need to be called out for the way they talk to us and about us . . . ALL white people.

September 18, 2017

POSTED IN AA GROUP

I am close friends with a former member of this group, Uponthegears. For those of you who don't remember him, he was one of a handful of Black DU members who stood for Senator Sanders until the convention and then stood in his defense after he became one of the whipping boys for Trump's victory. Even though Uponthegears views could not have been the most popular, he was always treated as a brother here. In fact, I came to DU because, even though he was FFR'd, he told me about the only post he had that that even most of the white DUers liked, a post about a friend of his whose tire was shot out late at night in rural Ohio and who got interrogated by the police for driving while black instead of treated like a victim of attempted murder. I was that friend.

Like Uponthegears, I am a Marxist and have been ever since we were both members of the Black Panther Party. I am as proud of that fact now as I was almost 50 years ago when we first learned of about the necessary role of Marxism in liberation from Seale and Cleaver. Even so, I have never voted for anyone in any election at any level who was not a Democrat. I have worked for the Democratic nominee during in every general election beginning in 1972 even though in 1972 I attended our convention instead. The reason for that is simple. It does not matter whether the Democratic Party "cares" about black people, or whether its policies are what I want them to be, or even whether it runs someone who I know to be racist. The United States has a binary system at the presidential level and for black people, at least in my mind, there is never a Republican who is better than any Democrat.

That does not mean that I will be silent when I see my brothers and sisters exploited. We were silent for 400 years. As of late, I have learned there is a price to be paid for that here. Because I have no doubt that I will pay that price in the near future, I just wanted to tell you before I do that Uponthegears is alive and well and that he still calls everyone in this group brother and sister.

Peace.