proletarianfeminism

[proletarianfeminism]

Is it even possible to be a voice for transformational change without a clear position on the brutal wars and occupations waged with U.S. weapons? Is it possible to have a credible critique of Wall Street’s impact on Black and other vulnerable communities in the U.S. without reckoning with the predatory and neocolonial impacts of the global financial system (including Washington-based institutions like the International Monetary Fund) on the debt-laden economies of African countries?

Even when our work is primarily focused nationally or hyperlocally, as it is for most organizers and writers, there is still a pressing need for an internationalist conception of power to inform our analysis. This is not a contradiction. In fact, it used to be foundational to all major radical and progressive movements, from the socialist internationals to Pan-Africanism and the global campaign to end apartheid in South Africa, from the “alter-globalization” movement to the international women’s movement. All understood that resistance needed to be global in order to win. Marcus Garvey, for instance, drew ideas and inspiration for Black liberation from the Irish struggle for independence. And Malcolm X famously observed that when racial minorities in the U.S. saw their struggle in a global context, they had the empowering realization that they were, in fact, part of a broad and powerful majority.

We are not saying that this internationalist tradition is entirely absent in contemporary North American movements — there have been Black activist delegations to Colombia, Brazil, and Palestine in recent years. The climate justice movement is linked to frontline fights against fossil fuel extraction in every corner of the globe. And the immigrant rights movement is internationalist by definition. So are parts of the movement confronting sexual violence. We could go on.

But it is also true that the atmosphere of intense political crisis in the United States is breeding a near myopic insularity among progressives and even some self-described radicals, one that is not just morally dangerous but strategically shortsighted. By defining our work exclusively as what goes on inside our borders, and losing touch with the rich anti-imperialist tradition, we risk depriving our movements of the revolutionary power that flows from cross-border exchanges of both wisdom and tactics.

Forget Coates vs. West — We All Have a Duty to Confront the Full Reach of U.S. Empire https://theintercept.com/2017/12/21/cornel-west-ta-nehisi-coates-feud/

[proletarianfeminism]

Male culture ensures that women’s anger is not taken seriously (and thus that women’s anger will not lead to social change) by defining anger in women as pathological. Broverman et al. (1972) found that mental health professionals judged aggression to be a trait associated with a healthy man, but not a healthy woman. Feinblatt and Gold (1976) found that more girls than boys were referred to children’s mental health centers for being defiant and verbally aggressive. Aggressive girls described in hypothetical case studies were rated both by graduate students in psychology and by parents as more disturbed, as being more in need of treatment, and as having poorer prognosis than boys described with identical problems. Hochschild (1983) found that males who displayed anger were thought to have deeply held convictions, while females were considered personally unstable.

Dee L. R. Graham, Loving to Survive (via reading-blog)

[proletarianfeminism]

Being girl is a way of being taught what it is to have a body: you are being told; you will receive my advances; you are object; thing, nothing. To become girl is to learn to expect such advances, to modify your behavior in accordance; to become girl as becoming wary of being in public space; becoming wary of being at all. Indeed, if you do not modify your behavior in accordance, if you are not careful and cautious, you can be made responsible for the violence directed toward you (look at what you were drinking, look at what you [were] wearing, look at where you were, look look).

Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life (26)

[proletarianfeminism]

Jerusalem (القدس) is the capital of Palestine. Israel is an apartheid state founded on the illegal occupation of Palestine by the Israeli military. Zionism is the racist & colonial ideology which justifies the ethnic cleansing of my people - the indigenous people of Palestine.

[proletarianfeminism]

“As trans people, we have a history of resistance of which we should be proud. Trans warriors stood up to the slave-owners, the feudal landlords, and the capitalist bosses. Today, as trans warriors we are joining the movement for a just society in greater and greater numbers. By raising the demands of our trans movement within the larger struggle for change, we are educating people about our oppression, winning allies, and shaping the society we’re trying to bring into being.

None of us will be free until we have forged an economic system that meets the needs of every working person. As trans people, we will not be free until we fight for and win a society in which no class stands to benefit from fomenting hatred and prejudice, where laws restricting sex and gender and human love will be unthinkable.

Look for us – transgender warriors – in the leadership of the struggle to usher in the dawn of liberation.”

Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors: From Joan of Arc to Denis Roman

[proletarianfeminism]

I have in the past criticized some marxist “takes” on sex work for reducing it entirely to a labor issue and ignoring the ways in which sex/gender manifests in sex work (…duh) that are not simply class matters.

However these days i think a more prominent tendency among self-proclaimed “marxists” with regard to sex work is to completely jettison everything they know about labor in general as well. In other words they don’t even criticize prostitution and pornography as forms of labor anymore. I swear, if you mention something about sex, most “marxists” will happily let their brains fall out and just repeat liberal platitudes.

To make things clear, let’s talk about the shortcomings of liberal theory here and how a genuinely Marxist analysis responds to it.

Liberals like to treat pornography and prostitution as matters of “choosing” and “agency,” “sexual liberation” and “empowerment.” Often, the primary explanation from liberals for why sex workers are oppressed is that sex work is not considered a “real job,” i.e. there’s a stigma. The implication here is obviously that if sex work were legitimized and treated like a “respectable” line of work then the problems would start to go away.

From a communist perspective, it is certainly true that the stigma surrounding sex work makes it harder for sex workers to leave the industry and causes broader problems in sex workers’ lives. However, in our view there are more fundamental problems that would persist even if sex work were considered a “real job.” This is analogous to how, no matter how much “legitimacy” jobs have in capitalism, capitalism remains founded in the exploitation of labor. And there are textile workers in South Asia who make $0.20/hr despite having “real jobs.”

In the first place, there are good reasons to think that sex work is, at least for the vast majority of sex workers, not at all about “choosing” or “agency.” There remain the simple facts that most sex workers are poor and wouldn’t be there if they didn’t feel they had to be, and that the overwhelming majority of sex workers say they would leave the industry but can’t or don’t know how. But at an even deeper level than that, the very foundation of selling sex makes “agency” impossible.

What’s really happening when sex is being sold? It means that access to one’s body can be purchased. One’s body becomes a thing, which is now effectively under the control of the highest bidder. Sex workers can, to some extent, be selective in who they offer services to or what sorts of jobs they take (this ability to choose increases with wealth). But there are limits to this, especially for the poorest sex workers. People have to eat, after all. This means that there is a point, for every sex worker, where giving another person access to her body becomes a business decision at best, and at worst a matter of life and death, which is the reality in the long run for most sex workers (especially globally speaking). An individual may feel like they are choosing in the moment. But how did they end up in that situation to begin with? Why is she the one selling and the other person the one buying? Why does the buyer have the money to buy? Could the worker really refuse and get away with it? What if she refused all customers?

The bottom line is, there are sexual acts these workers would not perform, and people these workers would not have sex with, if their lives did not depend on it. The pathway through which sex workers end up in their position in the first place, the clients they take, the acts they are “willing” to perform, are all structured by an entire economic and political system that sex workers are not at all in control of and which does not work in their benefit. There’s no other way to say it: prostitution and pornography is coerced sex, i.e. rape, no matter how any individual might feel about it. The reality of the situation is that “agency” is severely limited by the threat of starvation, and by the commodification of the body itself (which, in conjunction with capitalist labor relations, places the body out of one’s own control). And this is all central to the labor relation at a basic level. No matter how “respectable” sex work is this will still be true.

Note also that all of what i have just said is true to one extent or another of capitalist labor relations in general. So in the dominant forms of “marxist” discourse on this subject, where “marxists” simply adopt the liberal framework, they have to forget basic tenets of their supposed standpoint. Wage labor is source of the emiseration of the majority of the world and should be abolished, except for sex work. Got it.

Then on top of all of this there’s the role that pornography and prostitution play in constructing women specifically as sexual objects whose purpose is to be accessed. This is the gendered aspect of the relation and it has implications throughout society. That is worth talking about as well, and at one time that’s where i wanted to place focus. I’d assumed that a critique of sex work within the framework of capitalist labor relations in general was already taken for granted among communists but i think i was wrong about that. To a large degree i think it is necessary to go back to step 1 and really spell this out for liberal “marxists.”

On that point, why is it that many on the supposed “left” have so much trouble with this? Is it because they want to keep buying access to women’s bodies in communism? Or better yet, have free communal access to women?

[proletarianfeminism]

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Frederick Douglass, The Meaning of July Fourth to the Negro, July 5, 1852.

Again, this was part a speech given to a group of the elite of the nation by a freed Black man.

In pre-Civil War America.

And said out loud. To people.

Stones, man.

(via thoughtnami)

[proletarianfeminism]

If we, the colonized in the heart of the empire, wish to join with our brothers and sisters concentrated in the so-called Third World and take our place in the struggle for liberation we must break with North American patriotism and realize that rather than prove our loyalty to our oppressors we have to light a fire in the master’s house!

On the 4th of July: What is North American Patriotism? (via proletarianfeminism)

[proletarianfeminism]

May 15th, 2017 will commemorate the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) for the 69th year

On this event in 1948 Israel has:

Killed 13,000-20,000 Palestinians 

Expelled 700,000-800,000 Palestinians out of their homes and denied them from returning (that’s 65%-80% of the Palestinian population back then) and turned them into refugees till this day

Destroyed 450-550 Palestinian cities, towns, and villages (that’s 70%-85% of the Palestinian cities, towns, and villages back then)

Stole Palestinian property and land that’s worth more than $301 billion in 2016 prices

We will never forgive nor forget, and we will defy Ben-Gurion’s (Israel’s first Prime Minister) vision of “the old will die and the young will forget.” and we will avenge our grandparents by returning to Palestine. 

[proletarianfeminism]

The Trump administration’s rush to remove any and all undocumented immigrants has resulted in an almost 40 percent increase in immigration arrests — with the largest arrest spike being in immigrants with no criminal offense other than being undocumented, according to a new government report released Wednesday.

Since being given the green light to ramp up its pursuit of undocumented immigrants under a presidential executive order, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have arrested more than 41,000 individuals since January — at an average of 400 arrests per day, according to a report by ICE.

That’s an increase of 37 percent over the 30,028 immigration arrests made during the same period last year, under the Obama administration.

[proletarianfeminism]

Laos is the most heavily bombed country, relative to its population, in history. The United States dropped 270 million bombs on it between 1964 and 1973, even though the two countries were never officially at war. The missions, which were run by the CIA, were part of what was later known as the secret war, as Americans were unaware of what was going on.

[proletarianfeminism]

“I think anybody who is honestly struggling against racism must struggle against imperialism and vice versa.” — Assata Shakur

It is detrimental to Black liberation that we understand violence, as well as terrorism, as concepts entirely fed to us through an epistemic monopoly. There is a double standard and white supremacist monopoly on the concept of “violence” and while it is not surprising, it is deeply troubling. Who gets to define which forms of “violence” are acceptable, and who can perpetuate them, and who is responsible for unapproved violence? As Black people in the west, a stolen people on colonized land, that we get our very definition, normalization, and understanding of violence from our oppressors, masking themselves as civilizers and humanitarians, should be a troubling reminder of the reality of this monopoly on violence. Inside of this examination of violence, we are reminded of the importance of having a clear anti-imperialist stance within our visions of Black liberation because, as Malcolm X famously said, “the police do locally what the military does internationally.”

[proletarianfeminism]

The “socialism” of Bernie Sanders is no different than the social democracy and labor parties of Europe. It represents an attempt to save capitalism from itself in the imperialist core. It represents an attempt to save capitalism by insulating the populations of the First World from the worst excesses of capitalism. Bernie Sanders speaks to income inequality within the United States, but only in the United States. He says nothing to challenge the imperialist system that has created the American way of life. Bernie Sanders wants to “restore the American middle class,” to increase the American standard of living, a way of life bought at the expense of the exploited peoples of the Third World. His “socialism” is that of the pirate captain who advocates an equal distribution of treasure to his crew even though the treasure is stolen from others. Like both the social democrats and fascists of Europe, Bernie Sanders is concerned with the problems of his imperialist constituency. He is concerned only with the problems of Americans. He wants to make Americans richer even though the current standard of living in the United States is only made possible by imperialism. His “socialism” is one that only looks at the world through nationalist lenses. As it happens, Bernie Sanders is better on some issues than other American politicians. For example, he supported the Sandinista government when Reagan was terrorizing the Nicaraguan population. And he is better on migration than Donald Trump, who has fanned the flames of racism and even pledged to build a wall on the southern border to keep out Latinos. Even so, Bernie Sanders is an imperialist. Like virtually all American politicians, Bernie Sanders supports Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Bernie Sanders supported the war against Afghanistan and he continues to support the occupation of Afghanistan by the United States. Bernie Sanders supported the war against Yugoslavia. Bernie Sanders has said that Saudi Arabia should send troops into Syria. His is a “socialism” that supports war if it benefits Americans. He supports war on those he perceives to threaten the global order of Empire.

“Don’t be fooled! Bernie Sanders is not a socialist” (via proletarianfeminism)

[proletarianfeminism]

Another stark and disturbing reminder of how the so-called "peacekeeping" forces of the United Nations are nothing more than an imperialist occupying army. From the introduction of a devastating cholera outbreak to recent revelations about sexual exploitation of Haitian people, it is clear that: 1) the UN occupation of Haiti must end immediately, 2) the UN "peacekeepers" must be punished, and 3) the UN owes Haiti reparations from the misery they caused on the island nation.

“A rape victim has told how she was forced to have sex with UN workers who were supposed to be on a peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

The young woman, known only as Victim Number One, recounted her harrowing story to UN investigators - detailing how she was forced to have sex with some 50 peacekeepers from the age of 12 until she was 15.

She said one ‘Commandant’ gave her 75 cents to have sex - adding it was during a time when she 'didn’t even have breasts’.

The disturbing internal UN report uncovered abuse which was rife in Haiti between 2004 and 2007. At least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers exploited nine children as young as 12 in a sex ring, offering them cookies and snacks in return for sex. In the wake of the report, 114 peacekeepers were sent home thought none were imprisoned.” 

[proletarianfeminism]

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.

Edward Said, Orientalism

[proletarianfeminism]

Lambasting the United States’ aggression against Syria, Bolivian Ambassador to the United Nations Sacha Llorenti compared the basis for the unilateral move to former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s infamous 2003 presentation to the body, when fraudulent evidence of an alleged Iraqi weapons program was presented to justify the U.S. war on Iraq. Holding up an enlarged photo of Colin Powell’s “weapons of mass destruction” speech, Llorenti made an impassioned plea to hold the U.S. to account for Thursday’s unprovoked attack on Syria, noting the U.S. history of imperialist interventions in other nations, including Latin America. “Now the United States believe that they are investigators, they are attorneys, judges and they are the executioners. That’s not what international law is about.”

“I believe it’s vital for us to remember what history teaches us and on this occasion (in 2003), the United States did affirm, they affirmed that they had all the proof necessary to show that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction but they were never found … never were they found,” the Bolivian envoy told the emergency Security Council meeting on Friday.

[proletarianfeminism]

As Loïc Wacquant, scholar of the carceral state, asks, “What is the chance that white Americans will identify with Black convicts when even the Black leadership has turned its back on them?” The abandonment of Black convicts by civil rights organizations is reflected in the history of these organizations. From 1975-86, the NAACP and the Urban League identified imprisonment as a central issue, and the disproportionate incarceration of Black Americans was understood as a problem that was structural and political. Spokespersons from the civil rights organizations related imprisonment to the general confinement of Black Americans. Imprisoned Black men were, as Wacquant notes, portrayed inclusively as “brothers, uncles, neighbors, friends.” Between 1986-90 there was a dramatic shift in the rhetoric and official policy of the NAACP and the Urban League that is exemplary of the turn to a politics of innocence. By the early 1990s, the NAACP had dissolved its prison program and stopped publishing articles about rehabilitation and post-imprisonment issues. Meanwhile these organizations began to embrace the rhetoric of individual responsibility and a tough-on-crime stance that encouraged Blacks to collaborate with police to get drugs out of their neighborhoods, even going as far as endorsing harsher sentences for minors and recidivists. Black convicts, initially a part of the “we” articulated by civil rights groups, became them. Wacquant writes, “This reticence [to advocate for Black convicts] is further reinforced by the fact, noted long ago by W.E.B. DuBois, that the tenuous position of the black bourgeoisie in the socioracial hierarchy rests critically on its ability to distance itself from its unruly lower-class brethren: to offset the symbolic disability of blackness, middle-class African Americans must forcefully communicate to whites that they have ‘absolutely no sympathy and no known connections with any black man who has committed a crime.’” When the Black leadership and middle-class Blacks differentiate themselves from poorer Blacks, they feed into a notion of Black exceptionalism that is used to dismantle anti-racist struggles. This class of exceptional Blacks (Barack Obama, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell) supports the collective delusion of a post-race society.

Against Innocence