[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Adolph Reed says:

Thu Jul 30 23:13:19 UTC 2020

When Adolph Reed wrote "this antiracist politics" in May 2018, he was
referring to a particular kind of antiracist politics, not every imaginable
instance of antiracist politics, hence the word "this." Here is the
preceding paragraph:

In the antiracist political project white supremacy/racism is—like
“terrorism”—an amorphous, ideological abstraction whose specific content
exists largely in the eyes of the beholder. Therefore, like antiterrorism,
antiracism’s targets can be porous and entirely arbitrary; this means that,
also like antiterrorism, the struggle can never be won. Clint Smith’s
romantic assessment of Take ‘Em Down NOLA’s contribution indicates as much
and makes clear, as does everything that Ta-Nehisi Coates has ever written
(e.g., Coates 2014
<https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10624-017-9476-3#ref-CR10>,
2016a <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10624-017-9476-3#ref-CR8>
, b <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10624-017-9476-3#ref-CR9>,
2017 <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10624-017-9476-3#ref-CR7>),
that winning anything concrete is not the point. The “politics” that
follows from this view centers on pursuit of recognition and representation
on groupist terms—both as symbolic depiction in the public realm and as
claims to articulate the interests, perspectives, or “voices” of a generic
black constituency or some subset thereof, e.g., “youth” or “grassroots.”
It is not interested in broadly egalitarian redistribution.

On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 4:11 PM David Green <davidgreen50 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Bob, I honestly don't think he'd change his general analysis in any
> significant way in response to the current situation. He's done lots of
> interviews that testify to that in recent weeks, see Jacobin Youtube
> channel. Nonsite republished an article of Reed's from 2016
> <https://nonsite.org/editorial/how-racial-disparity-does-not-help-make-sense-of-patterns-of-police-violence-2>,
> with a new introduction by his co-conspirator Cedric Johnson.
> <https://nonsite.org/editorial/the-triumph-of-black-lives-matter-and-neoliberal-redemption>
>
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 11:01 AM Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> This is a misleading citation of Adolph Reed. He wrote these words in May
>> 2018.
>>
>> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10624-017-9476-3
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 6:13 PM David Green via Peace-discuss <
>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Neoliberal anarchism. You can read it on their website. Masquerading as
>>> "community".
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:09 PM Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I know, I understand. What is their stated view on the family?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Jul 27, 2020, at 15:01, David Green <davidgreen50 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Reed speaks to a broad audience, admittedly intellectual, but like
>>>> Chomsky also to labor leaders.
>>>>
>>>> In any event, I'm cutting BLM no slack. It's analysis is preposterous,
>>>> with no material component whatsoever. It's stated view on the family is
>>>> disgusting.
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 3:42 PM Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> David
>>>>>
>>>>> I understand what you and Adolph Reed are saying, and it should be
>>>>> noted, Adolphe Reed is African American and likely targets African
>>>>> Americans when speaking.
>>>>>
>>>>> Let me now express my simple interpretation and opinion:
>>>>>
>>>>> While we may not support the organization BLM given we know they are
>>>>> funded by the DNC and Soros as they support neoliberalism, and their
>>>>> criticism of Bernie for his stand on decommodification of education, etc.
>>>>> was counterproductive to helping African Americans, as well as working
>>>>> class white Americans, nonetheless I don’t propose opposing them.
>>>>>
>>>>> Many of the people protesting BLM are not part of or members of the
>>>>> BLM organization, they are simply people opposing racism against African
>>>>> Americans, nothing wrong with that. Yes, when it first began those of us
>>>>> opposing our many wars in the Middle East, and the massacre of millions of
>>>>> Muslims, cried out “all lives matter,” meaning “what about the millions we
>>>>> are killing now elsewhere in the world who are also not white?”
>>>>>
>>>>> Today by saying “Black Lives Matter,” it is now inclusive of
>>>>> indigenous peoples everywhere, as opposed to just white lives mattering.
>>>>>
>>>>> You are absolutely correct the many problems are a class issue, not a
>>>>> race issue, and by making it just about race, not to negate African
>>>>> Americans have been targeted and suffer worse due to conditions of poverty
>>>>> and racist policy’s,  continues to create division between the masses and
>>>>> becomes counterproductive as it ignores the cause, thus preventing
>>>>> solutions.
>>>>>
>>>>> Promoting people of color to positions of power initially was thought
>>>>> to be progressive, and it was as it provided opportunity to many, but not
>>>>> enough, certainly not all, and it supports the power of the ruling class
>>>>> providing them with tokens of diversity, as we know, power and money
>>>>> corrupts.
>>>>>
>>>>> One would think the Obama presidency with his failure to address the
>>>>> ills of African Americans, and working class, his expansion of the Bush
>>>>> wars from two to eight, bail out of the banks and wall street, as well as
>>>>> the implementation of the NDAA which now legitimizes the Trump
>>>>> administration bringing federal troops into cities across the nation to
>>>>> kidnap, incarcerate or just terrorize protestors, would make it clear
>>>>> neither Party has concern for the lives of working class Americans.
>>>>>
>>>>> The lives of the majority of working class Americans, whatever their
>>>>> race, continue to deteriorate as we fight among ourselves. Therefore we
>>>>> must keep our focus at all times on our system of capitalism as the culprit
>>>>> in need of change.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Jul 26, 2020, at 19:58, David Green via Peace <
>>>>> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Police violence correlates more with class than race. BLM is in
>>>>> support of Democrats, who are equally if not more responsible for
>>>>> neoliberalism and accompanying state violence. Trump is used to justify BLM
>>>>> supported destruction in working class urban communities. We should oppose
>>>>> Trump and BLM.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020, 9:52 PM John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 9:40 PM David Green <davidgreen50 at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Corporate and foundation funded anti-racism, including BLM, is a
>>>>>>> bourgeois neoliberal project of the professional-managetial class,
>>>>>>> including POC. It is fundamentally antagonistic to the working class. Thus,
>>>>>>> we should oppose BLM, which I do.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ah.  So boiled down to its essence and attempting to put matters into
>>>>>> plain English, demanding that the police treat Black people the same way
>>>>>> they treat white people, and quit murdering unarmed Black people wantonly,
>>>>>> is somehow antagonistic to the working class?  Asking for a friend, if I
>>>>>> had one.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020, 9:32 PM John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I didn't understand a single sentence of that.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 5:10 PM David Green via Peace <
>>>>>>>> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> “Notwithstanding its performative evocations of the 1960s Black
>>>>>>>>> Power populist militancy, this antiracist politics is neither leftist in
>>>>>>>>> itself nor particularly compatible with a left politics as conventionally
>>>>>>>>> understood. At this political juncture, it is, like bourgeois feminism and
>>>>>>>>> other groupist tendencies, an oppositional epicycle within hegemonic
>>>>>>>>> neoliberalism, one might say a component of neoliberalism’s critical
>>>>>>>>> self-consciousness; it is thus in fact fundamentally
>>>>>>>>> *anti-leftist.* Black political elites’ attacks on the Bernie
>>>>>>>>> Sanders 2016 presidential nomination campaign’s call for decommodified
>>>>>>>>> public higher education as frivolous, irresponsible, or even un-American
>>>>>>>>> underscores how deeply embedded this politics is within neoliberalism.”
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>>> Peace at lists.chambana.net
>>>>>>>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>
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