Mourning in America - Trump Year One: November '16 to

No, I get you now - I misread you as suggesting that it was invented by misogynist trolls.

I'd struggle to criticise the sign though - the murder rate among black trans women, for example is much higher than black cis men, but they don't get to be the backdrop. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for Black Lives Matters, and I'm well aware that it has a higher rate of female leadership than any non-gender-focussed organisation - but I don't know that it lives in a gender-free vacuum.

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, November 21, 2016 4:51 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Absolutely but I'm not saying "no more gender critique" I'm arguing for a re-prioritzation that remembers "women" as a voting bloc are not actually against white patriarchy & should probably enhance/grow the demographic group /priorities of those who are.

At the bottom of the surreal post article was an ad that said "schizophrenia? Learn more."

I wanted to believe that was why I was under the impression that Donald Trump was president elect

My view on the identity/class divide is that both sides are equally planks that complement each other and the left should try, as much as possible, to unite.

I think I cracked the case and we can move on

Everyone agrees with that they just disagree with how that should be done

Idk ppl on both sides often have axes to grind and lose sight of the fact that we elected a bunch of gangsters to the white house

Cf "We are the Left"

I can only speak anecdotally that I don't think a lot of scholars of class conflict are really familiar w the current ideological arguments happening around race & tend to dismiss them as emotional reactive responses instead of, like, actual ideologies. It's a common characterization of "identity politics." Which sometimes might be fair but anyone i see who's like, super class oriented /jacobin published tends to not even consider the possibility that they have ideological opposition on the left, it's always dismissed as a mix of "emotional" reactions and virtue signaling from allies.

I'm not even arguing the race oriented ideology can wholly explain things (though I think the left has been very underresponsive to it), I just think ppl don't even realize there's, like, a historically-based, rational argument that goes beyond "please pay lip service to black issues before pursuing your class critique"

it certainly doesn't help that most people on either side seem to insist that race or class do wholly explain things

does*

Idk i think people can form a strategic coalition even if they have different worldviews as long as they share some core values. That's what I want to hear about now.

Well I'd argue that the status quo on the left is race seen through economics but the argument w/in black studies etc is that the truth is the reverse; race is a deeper, more deeply rooted issue w/in western philosophy that pre dates capitalism as currently constituted. The argument wd be that class is "conflict" & can be addressed through regulation and reform, but race is an antagonism, unresolvable w/in the current paradigm

xp deej.

Kev otm though. People can have different accounts of the origins of inequality and then still join forces to fight inequality. It's not like Jeff Sessions is planning to unleash a bunch of microaggressions -- he is going to pursue policies that hurt minorities, things we can all agree are bad.

Abstract discussions, even vigorous debates, over core values enriches the left but we can't let it get in the way of resisting fascism.

Treeship's post is a good example of economic oriented myopia; racial concerns are reduced to white ppl being rude ( "microaggressions") instead of a status quo of state sponsored racialized violence.

I'm not even trying to argue racial concerns should take precedence (also not *not* saying that) just pointing out that one *side* acknowledging that race and class is important and the other side saying actually race still matters more than you think ...are not in agreement

No thats not what i am saying. I am saying that the economic left should be able to oppose mass incarceration and state sponsored racialized violence even if they can't get on board with every nuance of antiracist politics. Iwas arguing in favor of solidarity, not saying that one or the other side of the left is more legitimate

I don't think anyone is arguing for legislatikn that targets microaggressions, though 🤔

I am not at all dismissive of critiques rooted in microaggression theory/the social reproduction of race and its attendant trauma. But people are about to get their civil rights violated -- more than usual. Everyone - jacobin writers, rap critcs, me - should be able to join together to oppose that

Sure and tactically I think if u don't at least acknowledge or try to understand the philosophical basis of your potential ally there will continue to be these conflicts that spiral into race v class clusterfucks (this might happen anyway but at least an effort to stop treating these critiques as emotional/virtue signaling would be an improvement; a signal that ppl had considered the underlying philosophy of their allies. They might even find they agree w them more than they thought at first.)

I am mostly arguing against the anti identity politics arguments i have been seeing this week, which unfairly blame certain pockets of activists for hillary's loss. This is stupid and unhelpful, in a similar way to we are the left, which attacked the "class" people in this really broad, unclear, tendentious way. Strategically it seems like a bad conversation to be having all the time all over the pages of every left leaning newspaper and magazine

Common ground is important, is all I am saying, in a year that saw all the norms of our political culture evaporate into orange dust.

Oh cool this again

"For every new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated."

That sounds like a very carefully worked-out strategy.

The class/race divide really is complicated, and Treeship is 100% right that people should look for common ground. But then on the other hand you've got Bernie Sanders up on stage saying 'The working class of this country is being decimated. That's why Donald Trump won.' Not even lip service to race in the explanation of why a white supremacist won the election. How to find common ground in that?

smfh

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences

here are some tweets from the past couple of days, you tired fucking troll

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/799680323181121536
https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/799668183351357440
https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/800101849793642496
https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/800392536342687744

Trolling according to you is discussing actual quotes from an actual speech without going through the speakers twitter-history?

your implicit point that sanders is supposedly unable to cultivate common ground based on a cherry-picked excerpt from one speech is belied by the rest of his messaging. it's hard enough to get people to agree on anything without useless performative white europeans constantly concern trolling every few hours. stop fucking posting here

So the greatest trepidation for me about working under this administration is the sheer amount of endemic stupidity. Hateful ideas can be fought with, argued against, beaten back, shown for the cowardly retrograde shit that they are. I really believe that. But stupid people drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

I just keep imagining a briefing where we lay out all the facts on why it's a bad and unreasonable idea to require backdoors in every smartphone sold in America only to be told there's no other way to keep us safe from terror so just make it happen, nerds!

xps - I don't think the part you quoted (or paraphrased) was difficult to find common ground with. Your assertion that he does not even pay lip service to race as an explanation for Trump's victory could definitely be considered trolling.

It's a shitty speech - and I'm using the actual quotes, I know it was misquoted originally. A huge problem with structural white supremacy is that it constantly makes itself invisible. When Bernie Sanders says 'life expectancy for many workers has gone down' he doesn't mention that those statistics are about white workers, because the whiteness is invisible. He is talking about specific white problems, but they're 'beyond identity politics' because white identity is the normal identity.

with the Yam issuing policy videos, I think all my pub drinking in London this week will be Orwell haunts.

And k3v, fuck no you're not gonna make me stop posting. I don't care if you think I'm concern trolling, you also said about hispanics asking Mike Pence to think of them, that the 'sole purpose was to generate attention and controversy'. And fuck no it isn't 'belied' by the rest of his messaging, it fits with his campaign all too well, unfortunately. Which doesn't mean he's a bad person. It's not easy to combine identity and class, but it doesn't get easier when people like you are constantly doing personal attacks and attacks on motivation instead of discussing what's being said. You stop posting.

I feel your despair, El Tomboto.

xp kev and me and 49 others will tho u tiresome lecturey tonedeaf child

i bet when they check the records even trump voters will have gpd u

A huge problem with structural white supremacy is that it constantly makes itself invisible. When Bernie Sanders says 'life expectancy for many workers has gone down' he doesn't mention that those statistics are about white workers, because the whiteness is invisible. He is talking about specific white problems, but they're 'beyond identity politics' because white identity is the normal identity.

― Frederik B, Monday, November 21, 2016 9:53 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not sure you understand how much economic misery there is in this country.

God, people threatening to fp posters they disagree with must be so childish, insecure and pathetic. I get it for threats or personal attacks, but ffs, grow up darragh.

you dont understand what fp is for

its for irritant posters who fuck evryone off without the outright bannable behaviours you listed.

you are textbook.

Treeship: The statistics that started the whole debate about life expectancy were always about white people. Black people, as a group, are living longer and longer, though still shorter than white people. If he wanted to talk about general economic misery, he could say 'life expectancy is too low for many groups', but he took a statistic that was true for one race, and made race invisible. Which, again, does not make him a bad person, but it's indicative of how easy it is to turn a white identity into the de facto identity when speaking of class.

darragh, you just threatened that you'd help get me 51'd. You are a pathetic coward.

i would never disagree with you that black people in america face tons of obstacles that whites don't. the discrepancies in our criminal justice system alone are unspeakable and that's just the start of it. our neighborhoods and schools are segregated. but i think that it is worth pointing out that black, white, latino and all other workers are subject to the same brutal economic forces, the same heartless privatization and union busting policies. white and black residents of flint michigan are drinking the same poison water. if we keep arguing about how to frame this reality i don't think we'll ever address it. i also think things like criminal justice reform go hand in hand with addressing poverty and empowering labor organizations.

Fred could you remind us again how you know so much about racial politics in America and how to undo the centuries-spanning injustice of the country's foundational sin, over which a devastating civil war was fought, with one weird trick

I've read Ta-nehisi Coates.

Also, you are currently repeating a debate we've had for fifteen years in Denmark, since our populists became the foundation for the right-wing government in 2001. The US is not the only country in the world where the left is dealing with an identity/class conflict of emphasis.

i agree with fred that we shouldn't go for a kind of race blind new dealism that would overwhelmingly benefit whites. i just also don't think sanders was advocating that. he was more criticizing the kind of identity politics rooted in tokenism, like clinton's glass ceiling rhetoric, or the idea that inequality is fine as long as the people on the top include representatives from various genders and races. while the success of anti-discrimination legislation is important, and must continue and go much further, there are other problems to address too -- problems that affect people of all races and prevent them from leading healthy, fulfilling lives

thanks for new hi-concept dn tris

can y'all, like, grab a smoke, a drink, or listen to the Tribe album? Some of you have been writing words that may or may not turn into sentences since early this morning.

did u really hate nocturnal animals, im missing the spurs game tonight to go see it ffs

yeah go watch it (I hated it)

otm, everyone take a thread break, listen to Tribe