#leftists have an anti black problem that needs to be fucking addressed

[comradekarin]

ngl if you called cory booker’s twenty five hour senate speech detailing all the harm donald trump has done to suffering americans performative but still suck bernie “leftists’ human rights champion” sanders who does the same thing except bashes dems every chance he does (while also needing that voting base whenever he wants to run for office) and also weirdly enough not getting anything fucking done while in office, I’m going to call you anti-black LMAOOO SORRY. sanders, who also hangs around that freak hasan piker, too. if you’re going to lie about what dems can and cannot do (and still make republican action equivalent to dems work), I’m going to call you a weirdo. if you’ve been screaming about how you want dems to idk steal executive orders off a table and run off and you disliked booker being a mouthpiece of american frustration- I’m not going to take you seriously. we’re in a full out trade war right now, and people on this site saying well, we have no way of knowing if kamala would have done the same- you are anti black LMAOOOOO

[starr-angelofnarnia]

Accidental Hate

I’m certain I’m going to get hate for this, but I’ve been thinking about something a lot since coming to terms with the election results. Overall, I would say the democratic party, leftists, progressives, whatever name you have for the group is far more empathetic than the opposite side of the political spectrum. The term “bleeding heart liberal” always makes me laugh because it’s said as if it’s an insult. You’re looking down on me because I care about others? That’s not the flex you think it is.

But there is a concerning trend within the democratic party in the U.S. that I honestly think has a MONSTROUS impact on why we are where we are today. Plain and simple, a bad habit has developed of labeling things as -ist or -phobic when they just aren’t. I’m going to share some examples and I’ll start with the most immediate example that has me considering this in the first place.

“Kamala Harris lost because Trump supporters are sexist and racist.” No. I’m sure there were some voters who voted against her for being black and/or a woman. But that’s not the majority. The number one reason cited for voting Trump over Harris was the economy. THE ECONOMY. People are struggling to afford basic needs and they don’t think Harris is going to address that. Now, this is a problem with corporate greed (which Republicans escalate) rather than the economy. But that’s not an issue of race. That’s not an issue of gender. That’s an issue of more and more people struggling to put food on the table.

“But they want greater border control. That’s also racist.” Yes. It can be. But remember that fear about the economy? Most people assume that money that should be going to Americans is going to support people who enter illegally. And immigration in general is very nuanced because you have people here legally but temporarily, people here legally who overstay their welcome, naturalized citizens, people seeking refuge and probably more I’m missing. Concerns that borders need to be closed are coming (mostly) from people who are losing their jobs and struggling to survive. Assuming these people are racist ends up being classist because these concerns are coming mostly from the poor and undereducated.

“Jordan Chiles lost her medal because of racists.” Again, no. Anti-American, possibly, considering the nuances of international sporting competitions and human bias (because the US has dominated women’s gymnastics for decades now and other countries want to break that record). But it’s not racist. And anyone who thinks it is, clearly didn’t watch the competition in question. The medal issue is a problem with the International Gymnastics Federation, the International Olympic Committee, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport. And again, there are so many nuances here (it should not be impossible to earn a perfect 10) that makes it difficult. But to call it racist is a stretch. Especially considering Romania (the team that ended up with the bronze), has called for FIG to give Chiles’ medal back, as it was a clerical mistake.

“I can’t believe people stopped buying a brand of beer because the company chose a trans woman as a spokesperson.” This one really ticked me off because Dylan Mulvaney became popular by making videos with disgusting stereotypes of women. I’ll give her the respect she deserves by using her proper pronouns, but she did cause harm with some of the stereotypes she used. Some of the backlash was transphobic. A portion of the backlash were women who felt their voice was being taken away by someone making a mockery of them.

“J.K. Rowling is trans-phobic.” I don’t know her. Maybe she is. (I mean, fuck, she DEFINITELY crossed a line in her criticism of Imane Khelif). But she’s also had some valid points. There are biological differences in men and women that can be dangerous to ignore. A trans-woman can be killed by testicular cancer. A trans-man can die from uterine cancer. Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to learn about a chronic illness that impacts the uterus because I fear I might have it. And finding information on it has been difficult because it has been wrapped up as a trans-gender issue. A person with the illness might be trans-gender, but to even be diagnosed, they would have absolutely been born a woman. Trans-issues are real, but they shouldn’t be wrapped into women’s issues. Both are dangerously under-represented. And quite frankly, I don’t want to be known as a “person who menstruates either.” Again, it’s complex.

Hatred toward people based on their sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, religion and so on are very real problems. Behaviors and rhetoric that are harmful to minority groups absolutely need to be called out and blasted. But these problems are being over-labeled, slapped on an issue that is more nuanced. And in this habit of over-labeling behaviors as hateful, we’re exposing ourselves as harboring our own kind of hate: hatred toward the lower class, toward the uneducated. By crying “racism”, “sexism”, “homophobic”, “trans-phobic”, etc. for nuanced issues, we’re unintentionally othering, and being classist and educational elitists.

Bottom line: we cannot fight hatred with hatred. And for a significant percentage of the United States, the declaration of democratic policies are anti-poor and anti-undereducated.

[genderisareligion]

"I can't be racist, I'm black" doesn't actually address the problem that TERFs use racist ideals of femininity to determine who is and isn't a woman. Black Women are specifically targeted by transphobic dogpiling because we don't meet white beauty standards, they don't care if we're real women, they attack anyway, and TRAs are the ones I see defending us by default while TERFs usually have to be told that "no, they're real woman" before they stop attacking us, and only a handful bother apologizing before they move on to harass some other woman who isn't white enough to be a woman. We have to face the truth, even if we are real women, TERFs hate trannies more than they want to protect black women, we can't trust them

What "TERFs" are going around calling black women men? Cause I really don't see this happening. If you're going to come back (I'd prefer it if you didn't) give me specific examples of this happening. Radical feminists are not "racist when determining who is a woman," the only thing that makes one female is the production of the large gamete, your race doesn't matter, any disease, disorder or disability you have doesn't matter, you just have to be female.

Harassment of black women calling them male and masculine does happen, like with racists and misogynists, but I don't see it happening among radical feminists. Y'all will call anyone regardless of whether or not they're a feminist let alone a radical feminist a "TERF," men, women who vehemently hate other women as well as trans people, any random Bible punting patriarchy loving conservative who hates GNC bi and lesbian leftists, as many radical feminists are. Racist women harass black women all the time, but those aren't radical feminists. Radical feminist is anti racist. Ever read Audre Lorde? Barbara and Beverly Smith? Claire Heuchan? Here's Claire's blog for what radical feminists actually believe, since you seem to be confused.

Regardless black women being harassed for not living up to white beauty standards is not fucking transphobia. It's misogynoir. Before TRAs and their white ass gender and "queer theory" starting attempting to colonize everyone's language, black women were calling it that and I'm not about to march to the popular drum that says I should start calling it transphobia just because dysphoric males need me to be "less female than other females" so that they can feel better about themselves.

Nice use of the t-slur, by the way. Almost everyone I've ever followed who's gender critical or a radical feminist is above using that word but apparently you aren't lol

[jewish-privilege]

...In 2017, three Jewish attendees at the Chicago Dyke March were asked to leave after displaying a rainbow flag with a Star of David on it. In the surrounding arguments about what exactly happened, multiple leftist groups framed this debate not about visibly Jewish queer people existing without being quizzed about Israel and Zionism, but about “pinkwashing” at Pride events. Pinkwashing broadly describes how corporations will attempt to appeal to the LGBTQ community while simultaneously harming the community through its business practices. But in this specific context, pinkwashing refers to the belief that Israel only enacts LGBTQ-friendly policies in order to draw attention away from its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

In an essay published by the Black Rock Anarchist Collective in defense of the Chicago Dyke March’s actions, one writer stated, “Just to make myself clear: if you are a Zionist, if Palestinians make you feel uncomfortable, or if you work for a horrible, violent, pinkwashing organization, go fuck yourself, and go fuck yourself somewhere other than Dyke March. Just because a space allows you to attend does not mean that the space is FOR you, and to assume that you have a right to come and make people feel unsafe in their own spaces just because you want to be visible in public is the HEIGHT of privilege, White fragility, Jewish feelings, and general fuckery.”

...Honestly, everything about the pinkwashing debate is infuriating, and everyone involved needs to stop, drink a juice box, and take a nap. We need to remember that Pride celebrations, even in their most cringe-worthy corporate form, whether they are in the U.S. or Israel, are a net positive. Claiming that there is something inherently sinister about LGBTQ people having a slightly less miserable time in Israel are dressing homophobia, transphobia, and anti-Semitism in faux social justice language.

At the same time, we need to address the fact that Israel has a myriad host of issues when it comes to treating LGBTQ people with respect and dignity. Same-sex couples still cannot get married in Israel, because marriage is controlled by the Chief Rabbinate and there is no civil marriage. In 2015, an ultra-Orthodox extremist stabbed five people at the Jerusalem Pride parade, killing one. A far-right Israeli NGO put up homophobic billboards in Jerusalem right before their Pride celebration, and a man with a concealed knife was arrested at this year’s Pride parade.

Queer Palestinians in the diaspora should be able to discuss their problems with Israeli government policies and military actions without being told to “spend some time in Gaza and see how you like it.” Likewise, queer Jewish people like myself should be able to talk about the treatment of LGBTQ people in Israel without having to engage in a three-hour discussion of Israeli politics. I’m not exaggerating: I made one offhand comment about Israel at a Thanksgiving potluck once and got tied up in an argument that lasted until midnight.

I wonder if some of this bad discourse is because of how the Israel-Palestinian conflict is treated in leftist spaces. The conflict is frequently treated as an afterthought (a la “Oh, we need to sound woke, p.s. Free Palestine I guess”). If we actually wanted to incorporate justice for Palestinians in a meaningful way into the LGBTQ movement, that would require recognizing how Jews and Palestinians are closely related groups, both with historic ties to the Levant. It would also mean holding bad actors on all sides accountable for their actions and having difficult conversations about Israel and Zionism. But that requires hard work and coalition building, and many would rather harass Jewish proprietors of community organizing spaces or kick Jewish people out of LGBTQ spaces altogether.

One reason this argument is so exhausting is that it happens every single year. Every June, the discourse about pinkwashing is trotted out, and every year, leftist queer events make it clear that they will be policing people’s Jewish identities. This has most recently been seen with the Washington D.C. Dyke March, whose organizers sent a Facebook message to a Jewish woman saying marchers could wear “Jewish stars and other identifications and celebrations of Jewishness (yarmulkes, talit, other expressions of Judaism or Jewishness)” but it would not permit “pro-Israel paraphernalia” at the march. In comments to the Washington Post, one Jewish organizer Yael Horowitz didn’t clarify if rainbow flags with the Star of David violated the event’s policies, but did state that Palestinian flags were permitted. A joint statement from Zioness Movement, A Wider Bridge, and the JCRC of Greater Washington condemned the D.C. Dyke March and demanded that they apologize and allow Jewish marchers be able to march “as their full authentic selves.”

I find this kind of mixed messaging infuriating. Queer events should not be dictating to Jewish people about which expressions of our faith and culture are acceptable. Leftists need to stop playing this game where some forms of nationalism are praised while others are condemned. American, Israeli, and Palestinian nationalism all have toxic elements because nationalism is an inherently toxic concept. Also, I don’t trust organizers to be able to tell the difference between being proud to be Jewish and Israeli nationalism. I have a denim vest that I wear to all activist events that says עם ישראל חי (Am Yisrael Chai, or “The Jewish people live on”) and a patch of the flag of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Would I be asked to leave, or quizzed about Zionism and Israel, to prove that I’m one of the “good ones” if I wore it to the Chicago or D.C. Dyke March?

I want to be able to spend this month being proudly Jewish and proudly queer, but pinkwashing debates make me have to choose between the two. We need to stop making LGBTQ Jewish people pick from a false binary, and instead welcome to join all other LGBTQ people in the collective struggle for queer and trans liberation.

[solacekames]

Just venting here. I’m so fucking tired of self-flagellating leftist Asians. The whole “oh we’re so terrible,” “why are we so bad,” bullshit. I saw a bunch of it on Twitter the other day and couldn’t say anything about even though I really wanted to lay into those people.

Points:

1. It’s unrealistic. Asians aren’t that bad, we’re just flawed human beings like everyone else. A few fuckheads like Michelle Malkin or Dinesh D’Souza or Ian Miles Cheong suck up a lot of oxygen because white people love them, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept them as our unelected figureheads. Every time you overemphasize those people and underemphasize the good ones, you’re making the problem worse.

2. It’s guilt-ridden. And guilt is always useless and toxic if it doesn’t produce change. Asian guilt can become just as toxic as white guilt, in fact it’s more toxic to other Asians, especially young ones growing up in the diaspora who desperately need positive role models who fight their internalized racism and don’t engage in white-worship. If you have truly constructive criticism of your local or remote community, great! Put it out there! Let’s act on it! But if it’s just useless “why oh why can’t we live up to some impossible standard I guess it’s cause we’re terrible and we’ll never get better” don’t lay it on other people who have worked through any guilt and are actually out there trying to do the work.

3. It’s fetishistic. Most of the non-Black Asians doing this kind of self-flagellation fetishize Blackness in a disturbing way. “We are weak and should be more radical and strong, like Black people” is their unstated assumption, but that conceptualize Blackness as an absence, as something in opposition to whiteness. So in seeking to attack the pervasive problem of Asian anti-Blackness, they’re actually just reaffirming it through self-flagellation. And it actively undermines the people doing real concrete work to address anti-Blackness (like “The Letter”).

4. It’s stupidly binary. “All we care about is representation, we don’t do any real political stuff—” Which goes back to point number one. Asians are shallow because human beings, on the whole, are shallow. Fucking deal with it! Because it’s never going to change! YOU might not care about pop culture, but most people do. That’s why it’s “popular”. And just because someone cares about having an Asian actor in a popular movie doesn’t mean they can’t also care about, say, Black maternal death rates, or SE Asian deportations, or climate change, or abolishing prisons. 

5. It’s narcissistic. The assumption is that you’re one of the “good Asians” the more you chide the bad ones and talk about how other Asians are hopeless. A lot of white leftists engage in this holier-than-thou elitist shit, and it’s the worst kind of example for Asian leftists to follow. Any politics that isn’t grounded in faith in the people is pointless and elitist. It seems like a lot of activists who are Asian don’t even like or respect other Asian people and wish they were anything BUT Asian, and that’s just sad.

If you’re doing this, stop it. If you see your friends or family doing this, tell them to stop it. Please.

[evilelitest2]

how do you keep rightists from infiltrating leftist spaces? I used to think that just being openly socialist would keep nazis away but the Dirtbag Left and the Red/Brown Alliance and the whole "anti Idpol" shows that doesn't seem to be true

Yeah one of the misplace concretes of the left is that “oh if we just openly support socialist/communist/anarchist rhetoric, the fascists won’t join us” which logically should make sense but that isn’t how things play out in reality.  Turns out, Far Rightists are actually pretty good at infiltrating openly far left spaces because by definition, Fascists don’t have consistent beliefs by definition and rely far more on rhetorical flourishes and other such nonsense to hide their beliefs.  Cause in reality, people don’t unusually have consistently laid out beliefs, they have a hodgepodge of various contradictory beliefs borrow from a bunch of sources, so simply supporting universal healthcare in no way prevents Nazis from growing in your audience (cough Chapohouse Cough).   So the best way I think to keep Fascists from your space is to rely less on ideology, and more on specific methodology and rhetorical styles (because fascists always value rhetoric over ideology) 

   Firstly, any leftist space must openly declare their support for intersectionality in all forms.  I know a lot of them do this already, but it is very important that even if your primary concern is say, healthcare, you make sure to address the issues of Racism (including antisemitism), Sexism, Homophobia, Classism, Transphobia, Anti Immigration rhetoric, Colonalism, and disability bigotry.  Openly acknowledging these issues is important to keep fascists out, because there is a long history of the Rightists using a specific form of bigotry to infiltrate a community.  For example, TERFS started out as a feminist group and were generally left wing, but many of them have moved to the Right because bigots almost always value bigotry over other values.  There also has to be an awareness of how groups who are good on one front might be bad on another, lie how many Black Nationalist were quite antisemtic or the sexism you find in a lot of socialist groups.  That needs to be addressed at the outset. 

   Secondly, absolutely zero tolerance for conspiracy theories.  In addition to being incorrect and a form of intellectual laziness, one of the dangers of conspiratorial thinking is that you lose a sense of reality.  I was reading about how QAON has been attracting supposed leftists of the hippie variety, because they are drawn to “Deep State” narratives over their actual leftist beliefs.  The Far Right thrives on conspiracy theories, in fact conspiracy theories are sort of their founding principles, and they are extremely good at using them to get leftists to adopt reactionary positions.  Also most conspiracy theories are just a step or two removed from the Jewish Conspiracy Theory (notice how many supposed leftists bitch about George Soros) 

   Thirdly, an adoption of academia.  Academia has its problems, but its rigorous approach to research and its demand that claims need to be backed via evidence makes it like holy water to the alt right, there is a reason why one of their main targets is academia and college universities.  Anti-Intellectualism or anti education attitudes are just breading grounds for reactionary thought.  

Fourth, no tolerance of harassment.  If there is a core belief of the Far Right, it is “Being a dick to people is good actually, cruelty is something to be valued” so while it might seem tempting to harass shitty people, the problem with harassment is that it morphs, cruelty is addictive and people who engage in abusive behavior against shitty people, inevitably start to turn it against each other.  And if your community gives praise to people for being cruel, its an environment where Nationalists can easily infiltrate.  And when your community is defined by hate, its a lot easier to divide leftists from each other.  This is how “anti Idpol” was able to thrive, because the community that would become the Dirtbag left made their bones being toxic to people online, and then they took those methods and turned them against other forms of leftists.   Its comically easy for rightists to infiltrate Communist or Anarchist spaces, because if you have been in any of those circles, its an endless cycle of auto-cannibalism and people harassing each other, so the maladjusted reactionaries can fit in easily.  Civility politics are pretty shitty, but the response among some communities seems to be to just embrace the most toxic elements of internet culture.  If leftist spaces feel like 4chan but with Marx avatar, then that is just screaming for Far Right infiltration.  

   Finally, there needs to be a rejection of political binaries and linear thinking.  The Far Right isn’t just morally abhorrent, their entire world view is extremely simplistic and reductionist.  All bad things have a single source, goodness is just based on being a dick to the “bad people” and you never have to acknowledge complexity of reality.  Reality has a strong left wing bias because the world is actually complicated and nuanced and contradictory without clear simple answer (beyond fascists suck).  The left can have a bad tendency to embrace this really simplistic binary world view, which makes them really easy for fascists to trick.  A great example of this is how all the tumblr teenagers are using the term liberal  as the embodiment of everything bad, and they keep hanging out with other people who hate “liberalism” but mean something very different with that term.  You keep seeing supposed leftists who keep hanging out with White Nationalist because they both hate capitalism (again, Fascists don’t actually like capitalism, they just are willing to ally with it to destroy minorities).  People who make themselves ideologically rigid on purpose are really easy to manipulate, which is why the left keeps fighting each other rather than focusing on the fucking fascists.   An anti fascist space is one where people can tolerate a degree of disagreement as long as the subject isn’t bigotry.  

Its not enough to just oppose fascism, you need to reject their methods and mindset 

[evilelitest2]

yes it did lmao. Even ignoring the study done on it, all you have to do is spend 5 minutes on fucking donut or khive twitter watching them engage in rape apologism, anti-semitism, making fun of people dying from unaffordable health care, sweeping non-black PoC under the rug and wishing death on bernie and his supporters but hey I guess abuse doesn't count as abuse when centrists and neoliberal wine moms do it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Your aren’t going to impress me with whataboutism, especially since you are almost certainly using the term neoliberal wrong.  You really aren’t going to impress me when you are like “OH hey a study proved it” when you don’t provide the study, and frankly it really seems like you are just taking the headline of one particular study which has been throw around pro sanders circles like an icon rather than actually having to address the problems and maybe...trying to fix it.  For example, if you are trying to insist that there isn’t a problem with toxicity, maybe don’t use wine moms as an insult

Every candidate has a toxic element to their fanbase (Biden fans are way too eager to engage in Antisemitism towards Sanders) and when it comes to the larger fan culture Sanders supporters aren’t any particularly more toxic.  But when it comes to their internet presence, there is a massive element of toxic, as we can see by the mass tweeting of snakes at Warren, the presence of the Dirtbag Left, or for example...Chapohouse.   There isn’t like a Biden equivalent to Chapo and its imitators.  

Frankly, speaking as somebody who really dislikes Biden and is going to vote for Sanders in what is left of the primary, the toxicity of Sanders supporters online wasn’t just bad because it was immoral....its bad because it hurt sanders.  Mass tweeting snakes at warren really hurt Sanders in the primary, the fact that journalists were regularly swarmed by Sanders supporter made it more difficult to spread his message, the association with his brand to scum like Chapo hurt him for new voters, and frankly when one of his biggest issues was winning over older black voters and the fact that a very small but vocal minority of Sanders fans are dirtbag leftist really doesn’t help.  If you want to actually you know....win a damn election, you need to address the actual problems that caused you to lose