Just wanted to point out that I was a child in the 70's and remember free health care, free community college, a welfare system people that people in need could actually pay rent and bills with in the Bay Area until they got back on their feet, social security alone was enough for my great grandmother to rent a house and live comfortably, one person with a full time (40 hrs per week) *minimum wage* job could afford to *buy* their own house even just a 20 minute drive from downtown San Fransisco, the U.S. had the #1 public school system in the world, and the wealthiest Americans had never paid less than a 70% tax rate since WW2. Then in 1981 our country was afflicted by the reagan administration. Yay?.. 🤕
Also, I suggest keeping the _neo_ part of the term _neo-liberal._ They are absolutely not the same thing, and this is creating a lot of confusion these days. They are in fact, near opposites.. A Liberal seeks liberty and justice for all. A Neo-Liberal seeks liberty and justice for those who can afford to buy it. Edit: My bad, I forgot to mention that Malcom X was ofc correct, but he was not specific either and let these people who were in fact not actually liberals, get away with labeling themselves as such. No actual liberal ever stops seeking liberty and justice for all. No real liberal was not marching with their more melanated siblings and standing up for the freedom of everyone. Even though they were seen as "liberal" by the standards of their day, our "founding fathers" were mostly still bigots, and therefore not really liberals, even by the definition of the times. Indeed, many who these days think they are not, are actually bigots. When you get right down to it, most if not all humans have at least some small form of bigotry we don't yet recognize. One day, even the zoomers will be the "new boomers," and my generation X will be viewed by some as we ourselves viewed the Victorians. And that makes me very happy, because a progressive is someone who does not fear the evolution of their own species. ❤🌍🌎🌏
You sound good, and thanks for making this video! As a white cis het lefty, I think this is an incredibly important topic. Ether we all win together, or we lose separately. It is aggravating that a significant number of people on the left don't seem to recognize this. It's not a coincidence that racial mistrust has been exploited to prevent solidarity among workers, etc. I do support reparations, land back movements, etc. Historical wrongdoings should be addressed, as not only is it the right thing to do, it is also the only way to move past them. It's not an instant solution, but I think it can really make a difference. My only quibbles with this video would be in the explanation of socialism, but that isn't the point of this video, nor does this seem in any way malicious. You pretty much nailed the reasons why black people are under-represented by at least a factor of 4 (should be higher than that, IMHO, considering history). So thanks again for your excellent video!
Don't worry, you'll get used to it real quick like. Come sit over here and squirm with the rest of us. 😬🙂 We're in the back, so the light bouncing off us doesn't distract everyone...
When Fiq, T1J, Khadija, Foreign, Lexual or any of them call out "the fake white people who think they get it but don't," or the "preformative," types, I cringe a little. Not all looks in the mirror are a fun time, lol
It's good that you feel awkward, rather than defensive. A lot of people (not just white people) just accept a lot about the society they're born and raised in, without much consideration of how things should be. And more than a few will get defensive when the status quo is criticized, particularly if they don't see themselves as having been harmed or hindered by the status quo. If you feel awkward, rather than defensive, you can take the next step and consider why entertainment is such a prominent avenue for black people to become affluent in the U.S. And from there, you can consider what changes should be made in order allow more viable opportunities for black people, Latinos, low income people, etc. If I'm preaching to the choir, please forgive me.
To talk about the Black socialist movements of the past, the Panthers being the most recognizable example, it feels necessary to add that the government targeted those groups more frequently and with more violence than they did white socialists. As a white person, it seems to me that, if you're Black, you simply have less freedom to be politically radical, whereas if you're white, you can be as extreme as you like on both ends of the political spectrum.
I live in a overwhelmingly white and English town, and seeing how they treat me as a socialist along with how they treat non socialist PoC I can absolutely imagine each hatred would reach a zenith if combined
“You might be able to sing and dance like beyonce, but if your dad works 2 jobs and your mom’s car won’t start up, you might not make it to that important audition” Great quote. Many people believe we live in a meritocratic society, but socioeconomic suffering and exploitation has denied the world of so much human potential.
And the other side of that, too, is that's only IF you can Sing and Dance like Beyonce. And she's the only one from Destiny's Child still doing stuff. Lol.
I helped start a DSA chapter in my area and what you've said is true. After seeing a black comrade verbally attacked and run out of the a union event we were supporting, I've had a hard time seeing any hope for solidarity that focuses on economics first . I think any socialist movement here in the south is going to need to follow the lead of well established black liberation movements to find its voice.
Ew, yikes. That's awful. I'd be hard pressed to imagine what they could have possibly said or done to be run out of a union event. Even if they're absolutely shilling for the company, it would be so much better to publicly debate and show how those ideas are bad than have such an ugly and unproductive reaction. We can and should be gaining allies in marginalized demographics - the only people worth fighting against are those who engage with us in bad faith.
It started as a case of mistaken identity and then then the union members started getting violent. It wasn't DSAs fault but it's not like the problem has been fixxed. You should go see the first hand account from Dixieland of the Proletariat if you want to know more. I only saw part of it.
Idk if you wanted to spend 30 minutes getting nothing right about Bernie Sanders and finishing the rant with "we don't want socialism we want Wakanda" like y'all won't live to see the bomb drop let alone build infrastructure on the graves of pale skinned people who had as much to do with your perceived oppression as you did
It seems that a lot of people become socialist within academic settings, which ironically will be more accessible to affluent (and disproportionately White) people who can afford a college education. So you end up with a large proportion of the visible socialist activists being White people from economically privileged backgrounds, even if the policies they support are meant to benefit poor and minority people.
Rich people supporting ideas that are helping the less fortunate is empathy. I myself am doing pretty okay when it comes to my financial situation and I can see the benefits of more people experiencing this level of financial stability. I rather vote for politicians that are trying to aid the people under me than the people above me.
That's why throughout time the upper classes and the totalitarians have often targeted education and the intellectual. Not just American conservatives now, but also the monarchies of the past or the communist Khmer Rouge. The educated can point out what is wrong in the world and how it can be changed. For an authoritarian in power this is of course a threat.
Brandon you are right. The few black socialist I know where also radicalized in college. However on problem is that with many issues the interplay bewteen class and race becomes very hard to disentangle.
@@T1J Considering what they did to Paul Robeson, they don't need to actually kill you to shut you up. But the feds killing folks is definitely not off the table when Black socialists get organized enough.
@@T1J black panthers downfall definitely made it an aspect as well. Being a target and martyr for a cause shouldn't be the bare requirement for someone being socialist.
You can't have socialism without anti racism. Racism breaks the working class, and racism predates capitalism. Anti racism is vital for any socialist coalition to form
I agree. I don't really like the racism predates capitalism timeline and prefer an analysis of co-development/co-emergence. We encounter the spectre of workism if we define the transition to capitalism as the alienation of the laborer from the product of their labor, and forget the chattel slave, alienated not only from the products of their labor, nor even simply from their labor itself, but from their total possibility of being.
I agree, and I think part of the problem with current socialism representation is that is very reminiscent of the white person who states that “they don’t see color” or “race doesn’t exist”. Race as a social construct used to disfranchise, marginalize and oppress absolutely exists and “not seeing it” is just dismissiveness and willful ignorance. Socialism can and must do better.
Yes. Also anti-racism without class analysis is ultimately self defeating, at best you get a section of the minority group that manage to level up within capitalism while leaving the system untouched and their 'hood behind to get worse or at worst see for example Eldridge Cleaver's Reaganite arc.
socialism is a pipe dream because the average socialist does bare minimum yet demand maximum reward. Every socialist I know barely scraped school, work low skilled jobs and very much anti upskilling.
There is a similar argument going on here in India about socialism and Caste. While the Communist Party of India have always ignored the caste question also till now most of their high positions are filled by upper castes mostly Brahmins. And they rather engage with the class question than caste. Good reference to this is " Communism in India" by Dr B.R Ambedkar and the forward wich comes along with it.
Sorry for being ignorant of the situation but I always thought the Caste system was a class system and therefore should matter to socialists. I feel like anyone who calls themselves a socialist and doesn’t focus on the caste system is lying
This is the 4th reference to Ambedkar i've seen in the last few weeks. Before that i'd never heard of him. i'm not making a point. It's just a little weird.
@@leek6927 ur right that caste is a class system but there’s things like people not being allowed to marry out of caste or because of anti-blackness in india those of lower castes features r compared to African descent people in a way that poor Brahmans won’t. And most caste people practice a different form of Hinduism or diff religion from what Brahmans preach. There can be poor Brahmans but they’ll usually be separate from lower caste ppl anyways. As u said a serious socialist can’t call themselves one if they don’t care ab caste or race but we see ppl try to do otherwise plenty of times
Mixed-race brazilian socialist here. Always bizarre to see a video talking about US politics. From my perspective it's pretty undeniable that economic reform would do heaps in assisting black communities, but as stated, capitalism is obviously not the only factor that causes racism to exist. The problem I see in US politics is that there have been centuries of misinformation that have seeped into the cultural identity of the country, as well as a culture that has formed around the idea of Nationalism. The US, as a multicultural country, doesn't have many cultural values that can be used as a defining feature of its own people, so the idea of America is the one people tend to rally behind. That always seemed (to me) to be the reason that Nationalism (something that's seen as bad in most democratic societies) is so absurdly revered in the US. Consequently, everything that can be considered purely American has to be considered purely good. That's why Bernie committed political suicide by being openly socialist. That's why CRT is a naughty word. That's why questioning the second ammendment is a fucking heresy. That's why the US still "functions" under an indirect democracy after hundreds of years. Any disagreement with an American institution is perceived as an affront to everything America stands for. So, could an American politician come around preaching socialism and critical race theory and criminalizing hate speech and defunding the police? Sure. But he's going nowhere. America is an aristocratic, racially segregated police state, and if you want to change that, be prepared to get blacklisted and ridiculed. What I mean is, it's a lot more practical from an individualist point of view to support one controversial cause than many at once. But I feel that may be counterintuitive. An individualist perspective goes against the very nature of Socialism. There is no Socialism without black socialists. If the working class is to unite, every individual struggle must be heeded. It's possible I'm being way too optimistic though. US democracy seems broken to its core. I'm not American though, so please take everything I've said with a grain of salt.
You've hit the nail on the head my friend it's amazing the clarity an outside perspective can bring. Having to argue that you don't hate America as a concept when you have a legitimate criticism of an aspect of American society is how most of leftist talking are shut down. People say things like "If you don't like the way it is, then just leave." If you're talking about anything else it makes perfect sense that you can love something and still want it to improve.
Pretty accurate. This is why the black youth of today need to stop buying what mainstream democrats like Biden are selling: racism and capitalism aren't the same thing, but they're intertwined. Capitalism is the mechanism used to keep power in the hands of the few. The vicious inequality it creates prevents people of color from gaining the political momentum we need to advocate for ourselves. I think the question of which we deal with first is a false choice: it will take countless years to dismantle both systems - we need to start on both, simultaneously, as soon as possible. The good news is that, because racism and capitalism depend on one another, an attack on one can become an attack on both. We should turn the complex interdependence of our oppression into our advantage.
I’d add that a lot of nationalism is bolstered by religious leaders, blurring the lines between church and state. But you have all the right ideas, which makes sense, since Brazil has some similar history and cultural issues. Huge economy, diverse population, class divisions mirroring race, and governmental corruption on both sides of the aisle. They say Brazil is not for beginners. Well, turns out “America” is not for beginners either.
I've always wondered why socialist organizations overwhelmingly resemble me. This was really eye-opening, especially talking about how reframing everything as a class issue is a form of colorblindness. Viewing things through class can definitely be helpful in some ways, but it's very reductive and misses the issue of racism completely. I didn't see many cops in the poor white trailer parks when I lived in them, but I did see them everywhere when I lived in predominantly black government housing projects. Clearly not just a class issue. It's really surprising that reparations aren't a core talking point in many socialist movements because I haven't encountered a socialist who is opposed to them. It definitely seems like a good starting point
Not to diminish your point, I lived in a place where about 99% of the people who lived in my town were white. Our trailerpark was being visited often. The rest of the town? Maybe a couple times a year. This is just a snapshot though. Class is huge but it's only a proper lens to use in a largely homogenous environment.
I imagine the reparations thing is mostly about optics, and trying to convert people. When most people are already anti-socialist instinctively socialists need to do their best to be appealing to Libs. And the idea of reparations makes Libs super uncomfortable. While Libs have mostly moved on from their belief that we're post-racism, they are still really touchy on a lot of solutions to race issues. Any attempts to talk about reparations using that word is a no go.
@@epididymis3794 I think what he meant to say was that even though cops came to the white trailer park, it wasn't as frequent as when cops went into the hood. Essentially, cops don't judge based on a class first basis, but rather through race first basis. When race isn't on the table, then class is next on the list, hence why when YOU compare cop visits to the white trailer park to the other 99% that didn't dwell in it, it makes it seem like cops judge on class first.
A lot of black people don't look at reparations through a socialist lense though. It's just a huge hurdle on their way to becoming a billionaire like any other American. Black excellence and "just do better" politics are more popular than ever.
I'm not gonna lie bro, given the context and Bernie's history in general, it feels pretty unfair to draw equivalence between him mentioning marching alongside Dr. King to the "I have a black friend" trope, ijs.
At 15:40 I disagree that Bernie is pivoting away from race issues on this standpoint. Bernie is trying to show that there is an intersection of class and race when it comes to the issue of the safety of young Black Americans. It is important in my opinion to show that there is a clear intersection between race and class on this issue and that criminal justice reform is not the only way to positively effect the Black community. Also, a big thing that I feel that you missed is that an entire generation of black socialists were murdered during the civil rights movement. People from MLK to Mark Clark to Fred Hampton to Huey Newton were the next prominent vanguard that could have upheld socialism within the black community to be that bridge between W.E.B. DuBois and A. Philip Randolph to today. A similar thing happened to the Puerto Rican community as well but to a much lesser extent. Regardless, this is a good video and I appreciate the points that you brought up within it.
No. Every single time Bernie was asked about his agenda SPECIFICALLY for black people he’d yell and change the subject to “DISTRESSED COMMUNITIES”. Whenever a BLACK person brings up our material conditions as BLACK people in this country there’s ALWAYS a white man waiting in the wings to say ALL LIVES MATTER!!! There’s video of him being confronted by BLACK voters for him being scared to say BLACK.
He's trying to do that, yeah, but he's not really doing a great job at it. He just went from one topic to the next, without making any point at all on the connection between the two. He just kinda assumed that we'd get the connection on our own.
The problem is that you're creating a cognitive dissonance there. As a black person in the hood after experiencing various hate crimes against you which are very clearly racial in nature, to us it is clear that these racist action taken against them are, in a way, strongly linked to capitalist oppressive structures, but to that black person in that dire position they're going to struggle to really see past that front of racism. Fundamentally even though the racism is part of the oppression of capitalism... _it's still racist_ And if you don't address that, then you're not being very empathetic towards them. An easier way to explain this is like this: Try and explain capitalism/communism to a slave in the late 1800s. I guarantee you that, even tho it is true that there's a direct link between slave exploitation and capitalism, that the slave is *_really_* going to understand what you're saying and actually be onboard with your position.
20:03 This is important and is a problem that even Fidel Castro, one of the few that was capable of overthrowing capitalism and establish socialism, realized. "I am not claiming that our country is a perfect model of equality and justice. We believed at the beginning that when we established the fullest equality before the law and complete intolerance for any demonstration of sexual discrimination in the case of women, or racial discrimination in the case of ethnic minorities, these phenomena would vanish from our society. It was some time before we discovered that marginality and racial discrimination with it are not something that one gets rid of with a law or even with ten laws, and we have not managed to eliminate them completely in 40 years " -speech on September 8, 2000.
Castro was really good at introspection like this, and always eager to improve and iterate on the movement he was a part of. His apologies and change of stance around gay rights is another great example.
Many people who advocate for the immediate abolishment of capitalism are people who have a direct identity with a third world country that has been kept in miserable conditions by foreign capitalist policies. Social Democracy still relies on the exploitation of third world countries. Social Democracy is still racist. I am afraid I agree though, Americans will never go for Socialism without first going through Social Democracy. It just sucks though having to think about how many more generations of people have to live in abject misery because another* country, that won't even take care of their own people, is solely responsible for their economic state.
for real. i may not have direct relatives in the colonized periphery but i feel very invested in global black lib. "universal ghetto life. holla black you know it well"
This is so true. I immigrated to the Netherlands a while ago and there is a pervasive idea of the country being post-racial and only the US being hugely problematic. It's true that the Netherlands is the one of the best places in the world to live for anyone. But that was built using wealth that was stolen from the global south. The Dutch are still consumers under global capitalism, consuming products only made possible through the past and continued exploitation of people. When talking about politics, people are hyper fixated about politics within their own country and view foreign policy through the lens of what would be beneficial to that country, as if you can truly liberate people under these specific arbitrary borders, while ignoring everyone else.
You nailed my whole origin story . I feel seen and unoriginal at the same time lol. Liberian here whose country was ruined by America's capitalist interest . They funded a rebel leader to overthrow our communist leaning president at the time and we're still trying to recover.
@@crediblesalamander8056 so many european countries exploited us - France, netherlands, spain, portugal, england but refuse any type of accountability or even acknowledgement of these truths
@@crediblesalamander8056 and the Netherlands is racist and classist. It's not even an opinion at this point, there's enough evidence to prove that soo.
American socialists do overwhelmingly support reparations. Socialists are more interested in structures of power than we are in an abstract notion of "equality." We're materialists, so we don't rely on people having the right beliefs or altruistic dispositions, we say that if you want a better world you've got to organize society with better incentive & power structures. In that way, socialism is more about justice than it is about equality. So when it comes to reparations, we support them not only because it's the morally right thing to do, but also because it represents part of that structural change -- a greater democratization of economic power which can help to lead to that better society. For anyone genuinely interested in the socialist PoV, but who doesn't want to drudge through arcane "theory" I recommend "Why Marx was Right" by Terry Eagleton. It tackles 10 common anti-socialist talking points & explores modern socialist ideas with good humor & plain language... only problem is it probably could have been 1/3rd shorter with more editing lol
This is Marxist PoV no socialist in general.... And is problematic You don't need to replace power structure you need to dismantle them Justice is irrelevant with out equality... The idea of justice is problematic when you need to provide it... We create equality and everyone needs justice it will get it for themselves (with help for the rest of the society)
@stabilobowski It depends on what you mean by "equality." Marx, himself, spoke on this at length (as well as many other socialist thinkers). Different people are different. They have different needs, different interests, different abilities, etc. The point of restructuring society in a socialist way is so that everybody can have their individual needs met & so that they can thrive in their own particular way (this video's singer example comes to mind). That's what I'm talking about when I say justice, & it will necessarily require some type of inequality. In what way can we say the life of a reclusive artist is "equal" to the life of a world traveler or a work a day family man? These are not equal -- they're each very different, mutually exclusive lifestyles that each will appeal to different people (or even to one person at different points in their lives). Socialism WOULD inherently involve much greater economic equality than capitalism just like constitutional democracy involves much greater political equality than absolute monarchy... just look at the pay differential of Mondragon vs Walmart for instance. But the point isn't to make everyone the same, it's to enable everyone to flourish in their own unique way.
@stabilobowski Value is a squirrely thing. What do you mean by value? If we're talking about necessary labor value, different careers produce different value -- & more to the point, a person raising 5 children & attending to cancer treatment has much greater need than someone without any dependants or illnesses. This is why you get the term "from each according to their ability to each according to their need." Needs & abilities differ from person to person. I think people are especially interested in equality because we live in such monstrously unequal times. And it's true, accumulation of wealth & profit are alien to socialism... there would be no billionaires or millionaires -- such a concept wouldn't even apply. But I also think that when we simplify our worldview down to just "equality," we're setting ourselves up for failure... and we excite bad faith anti-socialists because we will have played into one of their ridiculous strawmen.
@stabilobowski Depending on which people you're talking about, I agree. We live in a white supremacist society which routinely affirms that it doesn't care about black people. If you're talking about socialists, well, there's a reason why most black liberation movements around the world have had their roots in socialism. Liberation is the business of socialists.
@stabilobowski I'm sure that there are some racist socialists, but yes, socialism as a school of thought is uncompromisingly anti-racist & anti-colonial. As is always the case though, in order to adequately represent _any_ group requires that group to also be in the driver's seat. Without black socialist leaders & popular black socialist participation, the movement will inherently be lacking because it's missing that crucial lived experience. And without socialism, black liberation movements inevitably reproduce white supremacy... "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house," & all that. Black liberation & socialism need eachother.
they all died. just like the prophets of old. except we're cursed with the knowledge that they are never coming back. and then Obama gentrified everybody. i have faith in Africa, and the growing economies therein.
Over the past couple of years, I've been challenging my negative belief about socialism. Socialism rubbed me the wrong way - which is bizarre because in many spaces socialism is synonymous with anti-Americanism (or anti-White.) Now that I'm older and maturing, I realize that the socialism itself wasn't the problem. The problem was the White-centric approach, often excluding and alienating a multi-ethnic Black woman like myself. Many White socialists (liberals and democrats, too) are ignorant of the wants and needs of Black people and other POC. You had me on the performative cringe. That has always been a turn off! Thanks again, T1J! 🧡 Edit: for typos....
what turned you off from socialism when you were younger? The free healthcare, livable wage, worker-focused approach? I am just confused at what the negatives could here
@@AMReed8 Check out the work of Angela Y Davis. Former Black Panther, she's a black lesbian socialist who has been advocating for prison abolishment for half a century. Actually, while you're at it, check out some of the things other Panthers have said. "We're going to fight racism not with racism, but we're going to fight it with solidarity. We say we're not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we're going to fight it with socialism." -- Fred Hampton.
@@vghsfan You gotta meet people where they're already at, man. That's a major issue with Leftist politics these days. If the DSA looks like Wonder Bread, then there really isn't much reason for BIPOC to think that the DSA is talking about anything that affects BIPOC. It's not always about the policies and ideology. You can't just intellectualize Revolution like that. You have to put the people before the theory.
As a white socialist (yeah, there it goes) it seems like fixing racial inequality is a precondition for fixing class inequality. That is, we HAVE to address racial injustice and racial resentment as a tool used by the property-owning classes to undermine class solidarity. Until the racism in union culture goes away, unions cannot work as tools to fight worker exploitation; they must fight for the rights of _every_ worker, equally, not just the good ol' boys in the circle. Likewise, the legitimate distrust of organizations with large white membership as you mentioned has to be overcome, and we only do that by fixing those aspects of racial inequality. That takes time. Generations. Especially since white society has done almost everything in its power to slow progress every step of the way, from Jim Crow to redlining to where the CIA decided to unload all that Nicaraguan crack. And it's not on us white folks to say it's time to trust. We haven't earned that trust. God I wish the Black Panthers, as they existed sixty years ago, were still around. Fuck the FBI. Fuck COINTELPRO.
You must not know your history very well. You see in the past when Jim Crow was in place the black community was doing much better than today. You might not understand this but once black people were told we white people and got nothing for you they did for themselves they grow their own neighborhoods they grew their own wealth. It wasn't until the Democratic Party could make use of the black community that's when the black community crumbled. And if you're socialist you don't get to complain about the white people. Because in the Socialist Utopia the minority rules and that Minority is the politician.
Not all racism is born from bourgeois propaganda. A lot of interacting with other cultures/ethnicities is accepting the other. Ending systemic oppression makes all racism a matter of words and feelings, and that is the point. Social issues should begin and end as perceived dysfunction, while both parties involved in the clash of identity are housed and fed regardless of the tension between them. If we avoid corruption and deflate any rising strong man, racism will be as foreign to the common discourse as ableism is today. Again, discrimination should end in the mind of the bigot, and any insensitivity should be handled between the offender and the offended without the advantage of an oppressive government body.
5:00 or so, the athlete thing is seriously underexamined as a gamble rather than a way out of poverty. The amount of investment going into any single athlete TRYING to get scouted is immense, and 'getting taken out of it by an injury permanently' is a risk. Throw in the right place right time thing, and the treatment of even successful athletes as a kind of commodity in a way that's not a real step up from ancient Rome, and it's... Grim.
Not to insult anyone who wants to excel in a sport, at all. Just... That particular con, with all the inspirational sports movies and uplifting news stories and a quietly ignored body count, is infuriating.
I wanna preface by saying that as an indigenous man first, and everything else I am second my views may be skewed or unreflective of socialist movements as a whole. I think there is plenty of support for reparations in the movement, but not nearly enough, and white socialists constantly disregard how little support their is and how little attention is paid to BIPOC people and demands within the framework of the movement. Socialism will never make up for the disgusting history of racism, segregation, and enslavement on its own, nor will it give back tribal land or bring back the completely eradicated tribes. For me, Socialism is at least a step towards equality and justice. I also recognize that my paleness means most white people view me first and foremost as a white man, so my thoughts on the issue are typically viewed from that lense. I think we have to be anti-racist while striving for a more socialist world for two reasons. Without some uniting of the impoverished Socialism will fail to be adopted, but also if we are not ACTIVELY anti-racist Socialism will just slowly loop back to capitalism as people attempt to marginalize the very groups that made Socialism possible in the first place for racist, homophobic, and transphobic reasons. Socialism requires necessarily we be anti-racist, pro-lgtbqia+, and pro-feminism. We must all work together to dismantle the grim specter of capitalism, and we must acknowledge that simply dismantling capitalism is not enough to make up for all the harm done to marginalized peoples.
I'm sure you're more than aware of Andrew Johnson kicking the freed people off their parcels of land given to them after the civil war. It's been a long time coming for some kind of recompense and the extra damage done to black populations in that time honestly warrants an even more extreme level of payback.
@@HollowGolem 6.4 quadrillion with a 6% interest rate. The figures have legit been calculated and could be paid for by MMT but socialists are too racist to support reparations
What I wonder about is if the DSA focus on identity is more on LGBTQ issues, which generally seem to have less support within the black community. Even if the mainstream progressives in the US broadly support various issues tied to identity - race, gender, religion, sexuality, immigration status, etc. - it can be problematic if the conversation stalls out on discussing just one or a few of those issues. There's that famous video of a DSA meeting falling apart white everyone claims a point of privilege, which might be the kind of thing that makes a black socialist feel silenced and excluded from the conversation because they're at the back of the line behind every other identity group unless they just so happen to intersect. Meanwhile, a cishet white male progressive doesn't generally suffer from issues relating to identity and has the privilege of waiting their turn because they don't have any burning issues relating to their identity being a cause of problems. Cue stricter socialists wanting to draw focus back to issues of class or wealth inequality, but as you implied, that can itself come across as telling people to sit down, shut up, and wait their turn. Damn, it's not an easy problem.
better at the DSA meeting than at the grocery store i guess. i think it was everyone's hope that social media would take up the slack on some of that. i think a lot of these ideas are just new and people are trying to wrestle with them, though. and i've always thought social media helps us socialists more than anybody else at the end of the day.
Bro that's honestly a huge part of it. I've noticed the Left tends to try and group the LGBTQ with BLM a lot. It's almost impossible for me to see one without the other nowadays. What I think the Left doesn't understand is how much a large portion of the Black Community doesn't even support groups like the LGBTQ. A lot of us are religious, or hold onto strong religious values. There was this study done (I forgot the source) but it showed that there's still a large portion of Black Americans who go to Church and hold strongly to religious values and beliefs. I think it's important to firmly distinguish the line between different issues. All forms of oppression are not, in anyway shape or form, the same. If you were to eliminate sexist ideologies and laws several American women face, there would still be racial issues Black women alone deal with, that most white women couldn't even comprehend of encountering.
The DSA focuses on the LGBT because most of them are white. When they do target the black lgbt it’s mostly for tokenism, but even when it isn’t the black lgbt doesn’t make up a significant majority in the black community so they support a small sun group of black people and then get to pretend to have supported the community overall. It’s all a shell game to get MORE resources into WHITE families.
It's funny this came up in my recommendations today, because just yesterday I watched a great episode of the Last Dope Intellectual devoted to Black socialism and communism. That is a rich and very important history. And my first-hand observation (not as a democratic "socialist" but as a communist) is that actual, factual socialists and communists are not disproportionately White but in fact disproportionately non-White-which stands to reason, because one of the major lessons of the last century is that revolutionary class consciousness is strongest among the most oppressed nations and populations. Edited to add that my first-hand observation pertains to the USA. It should go without saying that, globally, the overwhelming majority of socialists and communists are not White.
Probably the most prominent overtly communist party in this country was the Black Panther Party, and I feel like that's a part of civil rights history that often gets overlooked (partially because our history textbooks deliberately omit talking about the BPP at all)
When some white socialists seem dismissive of race issues, it's usually not because they don't understand or they don't care. It's a deliberate choice. The reasoning behind this for a socialist is that parsing out agendas according to race and/or gender issues (i.e. "identity politics") prevents the emergence of class consciousness. Many would go further, and say that race and gender division in this country are being deliberately exacerbated by the wealth class, with this specific goal in mind. This isn't just a position taken by many white socialists, either. I mean, that's the whole point of the Poor People's Campaign, right? That's what MLK had in mind when he founded it. Yeah, he was a socialist. That being said, you're not wrong when you say that ignoring the legitimate grievances of oppressed social classes might do just as much to prevent the emergence of class consciousness. Who wants to march with people who seem dismissive of the most salient parts of their lived experience? There is no great answer to this question. As you said, socialists have been actively debating how to walk this tightrope from day one. And in the end, maybe that's all socialists can do - keep walking the tightrope. Because just as Clinton said that breaking up the banks won't end racism, ending racism won't break up the banks either, will it?
Racism isn't exclusive to capitalism. Capitalism greatly benefits from racism but it's not exclusive to it. The goal is to fight against both. Against all forms of oppression. And if your organization isn't willing to say that out loud then it ain't worth it.
That Clinton quote was very confusing to me, because arguing in favor of keeping banks the way they are is essentially saying let them keep their consolidated power and discriminatory practices & make it impossible to hold them accountable when they do racist sh!t. Like, yeah let's not even try because it won't immediately end the herculean task of "ending racism".
I kind of think really ending racism WOULD break up the big banks, considering how the financial system has f***d over black people practically as a business plan. But the corollary is that you can't really end racism if you've left all the consequences of racial capitalism in place, and rectifying the damage in any real way would be a socialist project.
seems to me like it would do more harm. everyone may be part of the same class, but if due to race etc they have a different experience, and so to ignore that seems like it would be Really disenfranchising to anyone whos negatively affected by anything other than capitalism itself. although i do think to a limited extent its true that those things can be or are exploited to create tension in the working class, theyre still real and have to be acknowledged
Are socialists treating black rights as a side quest? In short: yeah. I often think about how Bernie botched his outreach in the Southern states-- where most black people live, while paying lip service in the debates. It honestly kind of explains why my friends were more pragmatic about Biden, even though he wasn't exactly their first choice.
Bernie is old as hell, he's been on the right side of history and fighting for people rights his whole career, Biden record has shown he's voted wrong almost his entire political career, the democratic party backed the candidate they thought could appeal to both sides, even if he would likely do very little to actually reform anything and just try and maintain the status quo. Bernie has hired people from BLM, he is pretty genuine in wanting to better life for everyone, but he has been outcasted by many, and his base is pretty terrible at turning out to vote, so he's in a difficult spot, and can't be doing the leg work he should be doing anymore because of his age.
(Edited Aug 30 22 because I'm still getting replies making it obvious how badly I expressed everything I thought I was saying.) When it comes down to it, I wouldn't blame any Black, indigenous or other person of color for being uneasy about Bernie ‸ _if he has given them any sign that he is less invested in racial equity than he was in his youth. _*_This is only speculation,_*_ but perhaps if there are folks who thought they perceived such a shift, they may have voted Clinton or Biden just to avoid the Gore Effect._ Vermont is one of the least racially diverse states in the US, with a 90% white population, and Sanders has been living there since 1968, according to Wikipedia. ‸ _I am not suggesting that I believe Sanders is any less committed to racial justice than ever. I haven't investigated his words or actions on the matter over the last 8 years, so to argue one side or the other would be dishonest of me. However, I speculate about the following because, _*_if_*_ such a shift has taken place, I can't imagine any other reason._ I mean, one can have all the most benevolent intentions _theoretically_ for a group of systemically marginalized people, but once he stopped working with them on a daily basis and they were literally out of his sight, I'd guess it -was- ‸ _may have been_ easier to let himself forget, bit by bit, how essential anti-racism is to any functioning society, regardless of its economic model. The land and the old buildings are gorgeous to me, but I couldn't see myself feeling comfortable in Vermont -- and I tried to imagine it, when I was looking to escape Florida -- purely because it's so very, _very_ white. I'm white myself, but I've always lived in a very diverse area, and something about being surrounded _only_ by white people just... feels eerie and wrong to me.
Did he Botch it or did the media and mainstream discourse within the DNC merely make it appear that he had by being more scornful and analytical of his statements than Clinton or Biden who have shocking records when it comes to Black and other POC? I wasn't following it that closely, I'm not based in North America, but my recollection from what I did was Sanders was meeting and actually paying attention to BLM activists through both campaigns and doing a site more than Hillary or Biden to acknowledge and support the movement.
@@kohhna I can't speak for anyone but myself, so I don't know if he "botched" his outreach. I can only confirm that most of the people I encountered who were supporters were white males. 🤷 That doesn't mean there weren't plenty of others who also would have elected him, given the chance. The DNC and the mainstream media, however, are both controlled by powerful neoliberal interests who would never risk letting a * _gasp!_ * *Socialist* get elected. We're already too far fucked for the changes we need to be made through the existing system, that much is evident.
It's a fair cop. Racist socialism is just racism without economic conflict, having eliminated the unwanted elements. Socialists should be able to recognize how the dynamics of power can sell an idea to the in-group without ever addressing the methodology of the controlling groups that are selling the idea. I think the modern age can be easily seen as the engineering of groups that are obscured from public view. If people were to study the values and history of those groups who generally avoid scrutiny and discredit those who call them out, successfully, the conversation could evolve because we would have to first understand that we tend to think that if something isn't part of a popular conversation then it isn't significant. This would underscore how media and propaganda herd us collectively and individually. Studying and understanding the dynamics of marginalized populations more closely would create a conversation that directly confronted the methods and values of the engineers of socioeconomic manipulation. However, we white male leftists should not only be seeking to intersect with those populations but also with those who identify with their oppressors, the white slaver, the managerial class and their best-skilled workers because that is where the oppressor finds their greatest power base and because those people are typically also oppressed and traumatized by the same institutions, they've just learned that there are advantages for them to discard conscience and join in with the oppression. They don't really understand the cost to them and their future and they haven't adequately observed their own trauma to understand it's origins, having been agitated by the incessant internal conflict which they are brainwashed to blame on outsiders from the institutions they have been taught to defend. It's where people are their most deluded and defensive and therefore we tend to not want to do this work because it seems impossible... but it will likely keep feeding the fires of oppression until we do. We have to focus on the foundations of moral injury if we want a just society.
Thanks for sharing your perspective TJ, and giving me something to think about. As a white middle aged male... and someone who supports the concept of "democratic socialism"... I currently have the following perspective. Black people and other minorities in America have been systemically held back economically for hundreds of years. This has had an obvious impact not only on generational wealth of communities, but from other aspects of power such as positions of influence, formal education and access to resources. Fixing class based power in economic systems can stop things like that from happening in the future, it can stop things from getting worse... but it won't *undo* the generations of disenfranchisement that communities had to endure. It might level the playing field "going forward", but certain people are still at an unfair "starting point" on that level playing field. So... I would say that if a group of people has systemically been disenfranchised for many generations, then they need to have generations worth of reconciliations to undo the damage. And at the same time we need to fix our economic systems. Both can be worked on simultaneously.
well I have to say "I was at the March on Washington with Dr. King" is probably as good as the "I have a black friend" argument is going to get 🤣 In all seriousness, great video.
I seriously don't understand mocking people who marched with Dr King. He was on the right side of history and he wasn't popular with whites at the time. Every single leader of the democratic party should have marched with Dr King if they are of that age. It's sad that it's something to brag about. It should be common. Unfortunately we've got Hillary Clinton who was pushing for Barry Goldwater and we've got Elizabeth Warren who was a republican until the 90s. I live in Florida so I'm going to have to vote for Charlie Crist in order to try to oust DeSantis. I don't understand why we have to uplift people who just figured out that the klan was bad within the last few years. Democratic Leadership should be people who ALWAYS recognized that gay people existed, people who ALWAYS recognized that the klan was bad. And why are the only black people who are allowed to succeed cops at this point? I'm tired of seeing Val demings and Kamala Harris promoted and Nina Turner sabotaged. Pointing out that you marched with Dr King is definitely a flex, because most Democratic Leadership unfortunately would have marched against him and the Republicans are fascists.
Agreed. This is one of the few places where I feel like I get a well rounded explanation of the larger context AND then a well thought out opinion! I really appreciate how you parse through it all with consideration for the complexities that we sometimes overlook.
@@mirandahein5344 and I also feel he speaks from a place of compasion and empathy, which is rarely seen. I gotta say, I mostly agree with him in general but his videos always make my point of view a bit deeper. I specially learnt a lot, bear in mind I don't leave in the US and our political and societal experiences are widely different. And yet...
When you mention that one kid, I had a flashback of when I brought up universal income in 4th grade in the '94 and even the teacher attacked me. Lol. Yeah, I would hang out with socialists and I was the tokken Mexican. My questioning of white people's agenda increased when I founded the Occupy movement in my city and white people took it over and kicked me out. Lol.
That is such a painfully violent and familiar narration of white supremism in the left space. Some of the worst imo. Hope you're doing okay now because these are very toxic, violent encounters and we take constant hits
Omg. Awful. Seriously just so upset people can be so blind and hypocritical because their racism is greater than their understanding of the cause. I've had limited exposure to people like this and they're almost more frustrating than the far right we oppose, because they can have just as ugly beliefs and behaviors but they hold up the same cardboard signs as us
"Part of the problem is that it sounds like people are saying, let's work on my thing first." The issue you might want to get at if you make a part two is that many socialists feel like we are talking about the same issues. Generational wealth inequality, good and non-discriminatory funding for schools and healthcare, defunding the military and police are all common issues to the socialist and racial-justice movements. Often times liberal politicians like Clinton make it sound like there are other issues (that never get defined) that are the exclusive purview of the racial-justice movement. And this attempt to craft anti-racism specific policies often leads to weird means-tested proposals that don't necessarily help that many people, while distracting from calls for good, universal programs (Michael Brooks and Briahna Joy Gray had a good discussion on this back in the last Democratic primary-ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rylSRp7hxQw.html) I don't know if you're familiar with Adolph Reed, but I'd be curious about your thoughts on his analysis.
Homie, Bernie Sanders saying "I walked with MLK during the Civil Rights Movement" isn't him saying MLK was his friend, it was Sanders saying "I've been fighting for your rights for a long time". Look at it this way, which other politician participated in the Civil Rights protests? If you guess that practically every politician that's still alive from then (Including Joe Biden!) wanted it shut down, you'd be correct
As a white cis male who leans socialist, I don't see how NOT supporting reparations is philosophically compatible with socialism. In other words, since that sentence is complicated, the idea that you can be socialist and not support reparations is not logically sound. I think two of the big issues around reparations are 1) what EXACTLY are we talking about? The concept is super nebulous and thus it can mean whatever you want it to mean. Is it free college for all blacks? Is it $100k to all black families? I think to talk about it meaningfully you need to actually define it. 2) a lot of the proposed answers to number 1 end up being part of what the socialist movement is about anyway: education, medical care, and better support systems. It is hard, in my mind, to understand how it makes sense to focus on one group when the goal is to support everyone equally, but I am willing to say that this is probably just my perspective. I have known poverty but I can't truly know racism or other prejudices. For this reason I am more than happy to listen to minority voices tell me what they need. I would very much like to see more people embracing others as humans first and other labels second, but I don't know how feasible that really is. And I don't mean "I don't see color" but that I can see your differences and say "you are my family, my brother or sister, because we are all people" That's probably just to far onto the future (or just a fantasy) though. Until then I will just strive to offer respect and try to learn more and be better
yup, if equality is the goal than reparations is a tool to get there. no matter the color, time, or place. that's the way i've always looked at it, to sort of summarize what you said.
I came here to say something similar, but you worded it a lot better. I agree that reparations seems obvious, and it is more the question of how they are paid. I'm not sure exactly how this would translate in america, but my grandmother still gets reparations from germany for the holocaust in the form of monthly payments, and i think something like this might work better than a lump sum. The stability it could provide is immeasurable. And of course it is not the only thing, I just wanted to add my 2 cents
@Maxwell Long oh yes. Its definitely due! But what is it? And I don't think its something that a white person should (ultimately) answer, to be honest.
Because by the time you exist in a world where you can give reparations without a white Jihad, you've already established a state capable of addressing the fundamental contradictions that generate poverty, so why not just answer those.
The answer to the Hilary Clinton quote is to me, absolutely dog-f'ing obvious: "not overnight but it would be a good step in the right direction". That news outlets, supposedly leftist ones would just let it hang with the implicit answer being "no, so why bother?" I think shows as much about media discourse and what Chomsky referred to as The Manufacture of Consent as anything clever or revealing about the question itself. These are good questions and this is a good discussion to have. I feel like the answers to these questions are also obvious and any half decent socialist worth their salt should be able to answer them, so for me as someone who isn't black, maybe best to leave my socialist comrades over there to do just that. A lot of these feel like discussions that black America has to have with itself. One thing I can speak to though, as it chimes with my own experience living as a member of an "othered" minority group who've suffered genocide and oppression in my own country is the one posed at about 20 minutes in about racism and abolising capitalism: the correct answer is before, during and after, in fact the process by which we abolish capitalism, if it is to succeed, of building movements, of struggle, of creating SOLIDARITY along class lines between people who have a common material interest and a common enemy is the engine by which both can be overcome. Its not a binary opposition, its not a zero sum game, its a dialectic.
Except for the fact that the question was clearly rhetorical. It wasn't intended to be answered, because it was meant to be its own answer. It might be a crap question in the realm of formal debate, but in terms of persuasive speaking, it's laser-focused on the weak points of Bernie's speeches.
T1J: " We want our reparations" "We want our Wakanda" Given centuries of oppression and humiliation black people had to endure I can emotionally relate to the longing for Wakanda. And i can see how typical democratic socialist policy proposals which are sold as benefitting all poor people is emotionally unfulfilling for peeps that want reparation. As I undertand It, it is matter of pride and healing. A non-economic aspect of socialisme that needs to be adressed. Maybe Marianne Williamson does a better job to adres this non-economic aspect than Bernie. Still, 'Wakanda' is not something that socialists of any color would easily promise to a doubting Black activist, who may believe that the piece of the pie is still in reach . I Just wonder this: How do we call White folks that want a White Wakanda? The Jewish Wakanda exists in real life as a the State of Israël.
I had to stop my DSA membership because of the problem of reformist bullshit as well as lack of intersectional attention at national level. Not really surprising that an org that was partially founded by Michael Harrington would have a diversity problem.
@@caleb98963 means fight for all, under all members sub-classes of the working class. if you fight for a few they use them against you and infighting increases when members don't appreciate the entire diversity of the lumpenproletariat
As a white-passing but mixed race (white Latino) chapter leader in my DSA chapter, I really appreciated this video. The issue of race is definitely something we’ve been thinking about in Milwaukee, given that it’s often classified as the most segregated city in the entire country. Ironically, this has often led to the problem of “white guilt” among the predominantly white membership. I think that one of the challenges for the socialist movement has been that white socialists are very concerned about their position in the socialist movement but their white guilt expresses itself in ways that end up putting them at the center of the issue again. Often when socialists are critical of “idpol,” I think they really would be better off talking about white guilt, which can warp concerns about racial justice into another way to center white people. But I’ve found some promising developments locally that I hope help folks on the left to start overcoming the whiteness of the anti-capitalist left in the US. First, we have worked with predominantly Black activist groups in Milwaukee, even when we have disagreements. Socialists should emphasize that Black people’s demands for a better quality of life are important goals in their own right and that socialists should support the development of political leadership and power in the Black community. To accomplish those goals, socialists have to work respectfully with progressive and liberal Black activists whenever we have shared goals. (Reparations would definitely qualify for me.) Second, I haven’t seen as much white guilt in the local chapter recently, which led to a much better relationship with local Black organizers and has created a healthier, more welcoming environment. Educating membership about the misuse of identity politics by white activists who want to present themselves as more virtuous than other white folks because they’re angrier about race changed the tone of the conversation. It also shifted the focus from performative politics that does nothing to help Black and brown people in the here and now to a focus on rectifying the actual impacts on people of color. Bottom line: any way you look at it, the only way forward is for the white left to focus on actually empowering Black and brown communities and not getting distracted by their own whiteness. That will take time, though, because white people have to unlearn unhelpful neuroses about race to get anything done.
The video you're responding to is a huge red flag that anyone that isn't a part of B1Js Wakanda takes very seriously. What are we fighting for if a racially pure society is the only outcome that centers black people enough?
@@jn1211 Black people's problem with Bernie according to T1J is that he doesn't specifically say "black people need" or "black people suffer from" and instead talks about the systemic issues that black people are oppressed by. This is harmful to progress because it places all progress behind qualifiers and restricts advancements that aren't specifically for black people only, meaning that instead of overhauling the entire criminal justice system we'll have to write the Black People Can't Go To Jail For *insert prior offense* to keep people like T1J from running their mouth. Additionally, I say that T1J wants a racially pure society because he's speaking in the language of black separatism, advocating for a separate state that only includes/involves black people. This is not socialism and it deprives other oppressed people (including poor whites which is why they want to keep the revolution strictly black) of the change that they are owed as well. I agree with institutional reparations and denounce any attempt at holding individuals responsible for the crimes committed in the past, but it seems like T1J is building his stance on the separatist hill where social conditions and all benefits of revolution should be isolated to and controlled by black people (which leads to private reparations and perpetuating white guilt).
Something I think about often is in NYC decades ago there was an all black school that was in disrepair. All the parents wanted was a school with working toilets. Instead they got an integrated school that eventually gentrified or just became another black school in disrepair. Moving up today an integrated school is at odds with the wealthy white parents needs over the poorer POC families who just want a better future for their kids. Meanwhile the budget is dominated by the needs of electives for white kids to compete in colleges. The black and Hispanic families actually liked the school better when they had more of a voice. When talking about socialist policies we need to be honest with the benefits we as groups want. As a white person from a wealthy family but hasn’t financially succeeded on my own. I want free healthcare and free college to better myself on my own terms. At the same time though racial injustice makes black communities skeptical of both those institutions. One of the biggest additions to free healthcare is also outreach and frankly more forms of reparations. In a colorblind world free healthcare will have issues of access. So many Americans aren’t familiar with having a healthy communication with their doctors. So often ignoring preventative care. That’s not even getting into the bias of medical professionals. Free healthcare is a total good but getting the suffering Americans especially marginalized groups to trust it will also need to be directly addressed.
I think the free helath care is most for white ppl. Yes it help everyone but there looking out for there own poor class. Also black women still being mistreated by hospital when comes to pain being believe in dying during birth nope we don’t trust healthcare lol an I’m nurse . Not going to lie I’m going to black female doctor cause I know they have my best interest at heart an not going to oh it’s in ur head or not give me proper test . If I had a kid I want black doctor make sure me an my baby comes out healthy
@@jborrego2406 I agree with what you are suggesting. Serious conditions and high risk health situations have notable racial bias. In contrast though, I grew up in an affluent family. You think we only use medicine for emergencies? My parents go to the Mayo clinic every year to get a full physical exam. Most of the care is preventative. Healthcare shouldn't only be about life or death. It should be about being comfortable just getting a physical. Universal healthcare is successful when the majority of citizens use those services before it's an emergency. Well before its an emergency even. I grew up comfortably going to the doctor. I'm not afraid of their services, but so many struggling Americans are because they associate it with serious conditions instead of prevention. They associate it with gaslighting your pain. Doctors you see regularly and consistently will know you better as a person. Giving Americans care is important, but we must also include community outreach to bring back the trust.
I was watching this video on Nebula, but I really want to leave a comment here, because brotha I have a lot of concern. Your first story about the only way to be a successful black person is to be either an athlete, entertainer, or of the professional class. Your experience is your experience, and I don't want to knock it. But for most of us we want just livable wages in good union jobs. That's nurses, teachers, postal workers, bus drivers, sanitation workers, food service workers, many of whom are black. None of those people lived in your hood? None of those people were in your family? Because they were in mine. All I'm sayin' is it's worth acknowledging those people who are not aspiring to extreme wealth and fame, but just enough not to have to worry at the end of the month. Then the acknowledgement well-know black socialists. I could be wrong, but it sounds like you're confusing needing to be a black socialist with needing to be a _well-known_ black socialist (which is by the way, a byproduct of the fame-oriented society we live in). My grandfather was in The Communist Party. I know plenty of black socialists, who are just everyday people. Just like the very cis white men you critique in the DSA. Which brings me to my final point. If you see an organization that you otherwise sympathize with, but note the high number of white people, the easiest way to improve diversity is to join. Then get others like you to join. These people aren't going to figure it our on their own. And when they try to recruit us, it ends up looking like The Invisible Man. These "socialists" are not sitting away from you. Unless you're confused right now, you are a socialist too. And at some point, you're going to need to participate and join in order to raise issues of race, class, gender, etc. Sitting there stewing in silence, for fear of conflict, does not improve these organizations. Join, engage, challenge. I'm in the DSA. I've also been in other associations that have similar diversity problems. I'm in trade associations, churches, unions, professional organizations that all struggle with racial diversity. The difference is that the DSA at the chapter level is actually democratic. We all pay dues and have some say over what we do with the money. We teach conflict resolution and base building. Now, I don't know what chapter you live near, but if it isn't diverse and democratic, T1J I encourage you to join and make it so. Then bring more brothers and sisters with you.
This video ended up being a lot better than I anticipated, but one thing that does bug me about this video specifically and many conversations of "class reductionism" is this false partition between "race issues" and "class issues". T1J even does this a little himself when he brings up the choice that black people investing themselves in socialist orgs must make between "let's work on my issue first, then we'll get to yours, or we'll help you with your problems only so that it will free you to solve the real problem" I really dislike this framing because it implies that there's this crystal-clear distinction that exists between "your" and "my" problems. Organizing for policy reforms like healthcare for all, homes for all, full employment, and workplace democracy are inherently anti-racist if the benefits from these reforms would disproportionately raise the standards of living for POC workers and women. If you ask black voters what they care about the most, they do care about discrimination and over-policing, but their top concerns overall seem to be issues like healthcare, jobs, retirement, housing etc just like voters of other races. This is in part why I actually really liked Bernie's answer to Jimmy Fallon about the protests and how he managed to link it to the common concern of unemployment (which has always been disproportionately inflicted upon black laborers) This is why historically, as T1J acknowledges, that many of the great anti-racist organizers and thinkers of the past were socialist or socialist adjacent and supported in tandem anti-discrimination policy and a social democratic program. Economic issues obviously aren't everything, but I do think this tendency to categorically separate racial and economic issues is deeply unproductive
yeah, it seems like ending wealth disparity would be reparations because we would be giving rich (largely white) peoples money to poor (largely black) people, im not sure what the problem is there, im sure wed all like to see poor whites raised out of poverty alongside us and after a few generations of sustained effort at creating equality, the correlations between poverty/crime and blackness would fade and i think that would work wonders for ending racial bias, ofc youd have to stop the racist propaganda machine too, but without uberwealthy white people the media would have noone to incentivise them to demonise black populations
"Organizing for policy reforms like healthcare for all. . . if the benefits from these reforms would disproportionately raise the standards of living for POC workers and women." And therein lies the problem: that "if". You see, a whole lot of the social safety net reforms of the last 100 years have either: a) not been available to Black folk (see, e.g. the GI Bill), b) done almost as much harm as good (see, e.g., the requirement of single parent households under some forms of welfare, or the horrors of multi-story housing projects), or c) been deliberately distributed in ways to exclude Black people (white flight from diverse school districts, coupled with school funding based on land values, for example, or poorer transit routes in Black neighborhoods, or seriously different levels of enforcement for petty drug crimes). And, despite all this, any help flowing to Black people at all has formed the core of the racist dog whistle messages from the right. Such dog whistles have included things like "universal healthcare works in other countries because they're 'less culturally diverse' ", as if it's asking too much to pay taxes that will help more "diverse" groups get healthcare, and scaremongering about "welfare queens" that are somehow rampant in New York and Chicago, but have never set foot in the far-poorer regions of Appalachia. So in an ideal world, yes, there's an argument that economic reforms can be anti-racist. But they are most definitely not inherently or automatically anti-racist. That's the point so many American socialists either ignore, or simply fail to grasp.
@@Daniko2 Wait, when did I make the claim that economic reforms of any kind are inherently anti-racist? Notice in my initial comment, I listed specific organizing goals supported by socialists. Every reform you just listed were liberal reforms that were deeply opposed by socialists at the time and are still despised to this day. While ones you didn't list, like Medicare, Social Security, labor law, public jobs programs during the New Deal and World War II, none of which were perfect and each have elements worth criticizing, were universal programs that disproportionately benefited POC and were key to the mid-century rise of the black middle class. Attacking racist dogmas about welfare is an admirable goal, but that dogma is in part due to bad policy design around means-testing that limits these programs only to the poor (which due to this country's racist history is disproportionately black). At least from a political messaging and a policy perspective, universal programs like those supported by socialists today that appeal to the common interest (but still greatly benefit the lives of those at the bottom) seems to be the most productive way forward
@@CC35351 "Wait, when did I make the claim that economic reforms of any kind are inherently anti-racist? Notice in my initial comment, I listed specific organizing goals supported by socialists". Yep. Economic reforms such as "healthcare for all, homes for all, full employment. . .", which you explicitly called "inherently anti-racist". I'm not sure why you object to my using your own words, but that's the answer to your first question. As for your second comment, to an extent you make a fair point in differentiating between socialist and liberal reforms. The difference between the liberal and socialist versions of those reforms seems to be a preference universality and lack of means testing among socialists, and I do acknowledge that universal programs have a better record. However, to suggest that the reforms you mention haven't also been administered in ways that continue racially disparate practices and results would be a step too far. Unions, for example, were often not required to accept Black members, and when under the new labor laws employers were required to pay Black laborers equal pay for equal work, the response was frequently "so why hire Blacks at all then?" It took a law explicitly aimed at discrimination, not economics, to answer that question. Also, you must be aware that even today patients who are wholly reliant on Medicare for their insurance needs have far less access to needed services, and far fewer doctors who will accept them as patients. This disproportionately affects people of color. Moreover, even when economic and educational disparities are accounted for, Black patients tend to have poorer outcomes--including the fact that newborn infant and maternal survival rates for Black mothers differ based on the race of the Doctor--even among the economically comfortable. Which brings up another point. Economically comfortable Black people do exist, and in the main, they're not socialists either. A Black person who isn't over 65, has a 401k, relies on Title VII for his rights to equality in the workplace, and gets his health insurance through his employer like everyone else is still at a disadvantage in this country. She may agree that universal healthcare would be nice, and it's appalling to have homeless people in the richest country on earth. But she's not going to be overly impressed with being told that fixing these issues will somehow make her real concerns about her teenaged son's safety if pulled over by police, physicians ignoring her pain complaints, and being dismissed as nothing more than a "diversity hire" at work just go away. To assume that there aren't racial issues that are truly separate from economic ones is to ignore both how those actual programs have functioned in this country, and that there are plenty of Black people who are economically comfortable, but who most definitely see their lives constrained in ways that their white neighbors' aren't.
I wish he would've addressed the generational divide in this video because this was like listening to my auntie talk about socialism. It's like people over 30 think neoliberal capitalism is working for us as a people. It's not like Biden or mainstream dem messaging to black people was adequate. I really fw T1J but he presents it like the assumption is centrist dems are offering us progress and most of my friends are well aware they're just kneeling in kente cloth for cameras 95% of the time. I guess the question I really have is: If you're this uncharitable to the idea of socialism because of the old white face on it, then why is it not extended to the neoliberal capitalists who we have historical evidence they've never given af about us outside of not being openly racist.
The socialist that tend to argue for the ripping and replace feels like the "get rich quick" (capitalist) mindset. I've argued that if I go from 300 pounds to 200 pounds that definitely takes me a big step towards reaching a healthy weight of 180. Though it seems like some of the leftist believed that any endeavor that doesn't take you from 300 pounds to a 180 pounds is a complete waste of time...🤦♂️
"Wealthy people like getting richer, but they can't keep getting richer if other people are getting richer." Gold. First time seeing your content, so the title had me a little cautious (a lot of videos that talk about socialism are biased against it), but when you mentioned CuriosityStream and Nebula (I hear about them on Second Thought's channel all the time), I became far more hopeful. Great video, and I'm definitely going to check out more of your content.
I've always believe that racism and capitalism are intertwined and that attempts to address one of them without addressing the other are doomed to failure.
That is why im puzzled about his view on capitalism . one group will be superior over another group. That is how the rich gets richer. We buying this stuff that made by his or her workers.
I'm 61. I'm old and soon to be dead, as I point out in my video _Into That Good Night._ I can remember when there were lots of black socialists. They had a tendency to get killed by the cops and locked up. In fact, the only person in the United States who seems to care about torture of Americans by governments in the US, Bonnie Kerness (who was 19 when I was born) did a lot of work trying to bring attention to the physical torture of black socialists in New Jersey prisons. I love her to pieces because one of the things she wrote for publication said that when she told the press, she was told "that doesn't happen in the U.S." The press just ignored me completely, except for _Under Lock and Key_ (Maoist) and News and Letters (Marxist-Humanist). Bonnie is one of only two people who payed attention when I wrote about my physical torture of being kept from sleeping at all for more than three and one-half weeks before my arraignment. (There was also the written death threat you can see in the little circle.) The other was Harvey Silverglate, a civil rights attorney (see his _Three Felonies a Day_) who wrote me that he hears about physical torture from prisoners so often he is no longer shocked. Amnesty International is useless, but they sure have nice ads and rake in the bux.
I can really easily see the frustration from both black (and other racial minority) liberals/moderates/conservatives and white socialists around this issue. On one hand, reparations of some form are certainly owed, and BIPOC face mortal and economic threats specifically due to racism that far too many white socialists seem weirdly unwilling to address. On the other hand, socialism, taken seriously, really would be beneficial to BIPOC along with everyone else, and would facilitate combating systemic racial injustice, and BIPOC not getting on board with this can be seen as simply wanting to take a turn at oppressing others. On the other other hand, while I fully believe we can make progress on both fronts simultaneously, you can’t get around the fact that political capital and activism labor is a finite resource in a given place and time. Concessions often have to be made in one area to achieve progress in another, that’s the reality of politics. And these are both such important issues that it’s really hard to convince someone who is really invested in either that making concessions is a good thing in the long term. On the other other other hand, we still have other problems! I would be skeptical of anyone trying to claim climate change is a less dire threat to our society than racism or capitalism. Plus, it’s the only one with an extra-human deadline; if we put off dealing with it to focus on other stuff first, it may simply be too late to avoid mass extinction events from which the species (and planet) can NEVER really “recover”. But how do we fight climate change when racism and capitalism are content to just sacrifice the lowest status groups like a meat shield to whatever calamity comes up? I don’t know. Shit is hard. We just gotta try our best while giving others respect who do the same, knowing none of us has all the answers.
Essentially, all these things are deeply connected. Climate change _is_ capitalism. Racism _is_ capitalism. This is why some of us don't like the term 'intersectionality'. It compartmentalises things and implies that they are separate problems that 'intersect' for some groups, when the truth is it's all a web of capitalism, though similar problems have existed as part of other profit-based systems that emphasised private property. I'd agree that climate change is the biggest threat however, and I don't think we have enough time to prioritise anything else at the moment.
“Shouldn’t have to entertain white people to get out of poverty.” Oh damn I had really never thought about it that way, that’s kind of eye opening and although I’m sure black celebrities are proud of their own success and deserve to be, that is one of the constraints of the system we have.
I also think that black people are a pragmatic voting block. When going back and forth with my mother over Bernie, one thing that always came up was, “this country won’t do that.” Being marginalized let’s a group well aware of the parameters that they can work within.
does not literally everyone claim to be voting "pragmatically"? T1J himself mentions this in reference to the preponderance of relying on some sense of "electability" in the 2020 Democratic primary to guide voter decisions
"Hurr durr media said it's impossible so I guess it is." Is the mindset that's fundamentally wrong and broken yet seemingly so common place in the USA. Also the idea that black people are specially gifted at analyzing policy and politics compared to other people and that we should accept "common knowledge" from the black community is silly, the failing ideas of elders should never hold down young people because they dare to dream of a better future.
"If you spend money on anything, you might be called a socialist." Yes! Going back to the works of guys like Frederick Bastiat, some folks say even things like public education is socialist and evil since poor kids do better at work than at school. It was 1850 when Bastiat wrote that, but it seems still vogue today.
I’ve heard time and again that racism is prejudice + power, and I understand that socialism is focused on distributing power more evenly. So if socialism handled the power side of it but the prejudice remained, that would be an improvement, right? Folks who experience prejudice would be more empowered to stand up to it, or even ignore it.
I don't think it's possible to have reparations under social democracy. Under social democracy we would just be changing the terms of the oppression. Likely just outsourcing the oppression to other pre-subjugated countries.
Found you from Hasanabi stream, great video and production quality. While I do not fully agree with the criticism’s of Bernie in the video, I do think it is an extremely important topic to discuss. I think a great place to start is having more Black Leftist content creators! Keep up the great work!!
I remember being a conservative when I was younger and perhaps the one appealing thing about conservatism is that it is fundamentally unambitious in its goals. You dont have to change society. You don't need everyone to do better or be better. You just need to get yours. If you are on the losing side of a social/economic/political hierarchy, imagining the revolution needed for socialism can feel naive or unrealistic. Getting a seat at the table feels more attainable. This generalizes to so many sides of social and economic progressivism. Coming from a Jewish family of soviet immigrants, I was raised to believe that genuine acceptance was never really on offer. The best I could do was to achieve for myself and to not care about anyone or anything else. I suppose it must have been similar in other families.
It's because the history of populist movements in the US is rife with racism, and for a variety of reasons there is a staggering lack of awareness about the outreach required to address and overcome that. In everything from Public works, to Suffrage, to Labor, the history has been one of exploiting the briefly common plight with black people - only to turn around and side with oppression after the obstacle is kinda-sorta addressed. Ironically, while there is more awareness and ostensibly more support from modern socialists, these are white people who have grown up in a heavily segregated generation, where many are just wholly unaware of the issues we face, or don't know how (or are otherwise unwilling) to do or advocate for the most meaningful solutions (i.e. reparations). The black marxist movements of the past involved black leadership tackling the more immediate issues of their communities (primarily, food). However, even that is heavily subverted these days, where the state is now deployed against simply trying to feed the poor without politically sanitizing the act. As we've seen in the wake of the BLM protests, it's also still common practice to just out and out assassinate key agitating figures in each of these movements, which maybe get a footnote at worst in even leftist circles. There is a disconnect that needs to be bridged. Edit: Because so much of black community history is rooted in Christianity, there is a conservative underlining behind many older/poorer black people.
This is a great video - usually audio glitches are a dealbreaker for me for sensory reasons but I really want to learn about this topic so I’ll stick it through
13:46 I'm sorry, marching in a demonstration isn't the same as claiming to have a black friend. Typically when someone claims to have a black friend, it's to lessen the racist impact of their action or what they're saying. "I can't be racist; I have a black friend!" Marching in a demonstration isn't that. Perhaps marching isn't enough or can come off of performative, but it's better than just claiming you have a friend who's black. I believe in that moment he was trying to say he would stand with them, but the establishment worked hard to smear his name. They did that vs Hillary, too, claiming all of his supporters were like anti-woman or something, which makes no sense.
This is exactly what I was thinking. Bernie was pro-black, pro-civil rights before most of us were born, during a time when it was dangerous to be so. I never understood how anyone could look at that man's history and not see him as an ally to black people.
There are enough similarities between the two for the comparison to make total sense. Especially if you include Biden's claim of being arrested in South Africa trying to see Nelson Mandela. It's just that the "I have black friends" works for white, right-wing politics while "I marched with black icons" works for white, left wing politics. So, the two are 'not the same' only in so far as there are qualitative differences between right wing and left wing politics -- but the two are the same in so far as they are both performing a similar function for some white politicians, with variants to better suit the specific ideological wing within which they are operating.
My problem with it, is that it's as if theres nothing specific there, usually indicating a blank spot. Like, it shows somebody just hasn't thought about race because they honestly didn't have to. Are we to believe that somebody who doesn't think about race on a daily basis can really help or liberate us POC who are forced to?
One factor that could be important is differences in religiosity between racial groups. Religious people tend to be more regressive and conservative both socially and economically.
This video (though good) lacks any historical analysis outside of like 2007 to the present. Du Bois, George Jackson, Stuart Hall, Combahee River Collective: all socialists. The socialist movement was enormous in the US until the State, in a world historic moment, literally killed it (in South America too). What we have now is just a small burgeoning shadow of what existed.
The video is interesting, and put some good ideas on the table. And I really like your content in general even if I disagree with some stuff. Just gotta say marching with mlk is not "I have a black friend" is "I fight for black people's rights" and it wasn't even the answer he gave, he was just starting to talk
The White Progressive Dudebro's messaging you mentioned (hey, you need to get behind *my* cause because that's the more important thing and then maybe we'll solve your thing afterwards) isn't just a racial thing, it's also a gender thing. I'm still seeing white male socialists patting my head that the overturn of Roe isn't that big a deal and we can instead all just put aside out bodily autonomy to focus on dismantling capitalism instead. Socialism only works in a society where people view their fellow countrymen as their brothers and sisters, no matter what they look like, and have not animus towards everyone getting an equal share out of that feeling of brotherhood. The problem with socialists in America (with the exception of black socialists like West) is that they really do not understand that socialism has to be for _everybody_, and you can talk to a white person and get them 100% on board with something like free tuition, single payer healthcare, and a tax policy that will eliminate wealth inequality but the second that white person realizes that some of those socialist goodies will go to a person of color then all bets are off, and black people tend to know this. It can feel a bit like a Gordian knot.
It's upsetting how true that is. I'm a white Latino but when I talk to other whites about this they always seem to change when race, gender, and now surprisingly commonly gender and sexual identity are mentioned. They act like losing their privilege (of which they'll never fully admit they have) is a bad thing. You won't have inherent societal advantages over other people and you're upset about that? It's frustrating.
This video is really interesting juxtaposed with the black jeopardy video. Thinking of the Tom Hanks bit, it makes total sense now how they were all relating on things that where inherently class struggle, but everything fell apart as soon as the race struggle was introduced.
@@The_SOB_II but that's how you do it. what can you do at a policy level to help ONLY chinese people? and why would you if you could help more? what specifically would you want Bernie to do to address ONLY racism and other forms of oppression?
From my experience with my family and other white folks, I think racism is the largest barrier to the United States implementing more progressive policies. As long as politicians have an "other" group to demonize, and the people who vote for them have a group that they can think they are at least doing better than, people will continue to vote against their own interests. There are a lot of fundamental problems we have to continue to work on but we are always going to run into barriers as long as people are in the mindset that "this will help those other people and therefore hurt me"
Ok are these concepts not compatible though? I agree that socialism doesn't attempt to address identity politics issues directly and therefore can ignore or minimise it, but does it conflict with identity politics issues? Surely they're complimentary provided both are taken seriously? I mean taxing the billionaires won't solve racism but it sure will provide the resources for doing so. And what's the point of gathering those common resources if they're not used to achieve social goods like racial justice?
This was perfect. My boyfriend is a white socialist and I'm a black woman and we always have those discussions. He feels like we are getting derailed by not just getting rid of capitalism by uniting the working class without understanding why ending racism is soooo important to do so. I'm sorry but it would be really hard for me to demonstrate side by side to someone who's racist or doesn't understand consent but is still working class.
Watched this twice, once on your chanel then another time on hasans stream and i just wanted to leave this comment to say as a black socialist you are completley correct about socialist messaging. I think hasan couldnt see what you meant because he wanted to defend bernie. Keep up the good work!
Race and politics and socialism are such volatile topics to talk about. They all bring out the outrage in people. So kudos to you for discussing this topic with expert-level tact.
You're very right when you say that white liberals don't understand that many black people are conservative. Yes they don't vote republican, but their values are conservative. There's are larger percentage of people against gay marriage and interracial marriage in the black community than other racial group in the US. There's probs many reasons for this, a lot of black people are very religious, low income households are more likely to be conservative. Yes a lot of black people are open to economic socialism. But they don't agree with the social progressivism pushed by socialist parties. But social equality for queer people is not something socialist can move on. Increasing the wealth and education in the black community might reduce conservatism. So we would have to work on that first before we can expect socialism to become popular in the black community. Which goes back to what you were saying about fixing racism as a 'means to an end'. Although racial equality is also something socialists won't move on. And wealth and education can be redistributed to black people through socialist policies. God my brain hurts
New to this channel, Great video but wanna to touch on something. There are many black socialists/leftists in the U.S. but the majority of the black community aren't. Some of the things that is holding is back us" hustle culture" and saying things like :9-5 is a scam". I remember working in a office job and the older generation would brag about "they would leave their job when they are dead" or "I will sleep when I dead" which are toxic and destructive mindsets. And I think the idea of Bernie using the "I have a black friend" is untrue and damaging. The truth is that older generation liked Joe Biden's crime bill because gang violence was a serious problem to the point were kids were known to be shot for while going to the store. We can talk about of the crime bill was too extreme now but many black Americans asked for this bill. I was curious of why the polling showed that Biden was favored over Bernie and this seems to be a good explanation for it. Most of the black community are liberal and we should try to lead them further left and into a better system than capitalism.
I really like this thesis. It's sure as shit going to take somebody smarter than me to solve that particular puzzle, though I think part of the disconnect lies in incrementalism/progressivism. I fully agree that if the end goal is merely 'capitalism lite' that's had the inequities of racism, sexism, and other oppression ~somehow~ excised, 'giving' POC and other minorities a seat at the table isn't good enough - and it leaves a lot of reasonable questions as to *how and when exactly* those inequities are going do be done away with. It's not surprising to me that the DSA and its primarily white members are having a hard time selling "if you're patient and play by the same rules that have been used as tools to oppress you, bit by bit things will get better for everyone and for a change that INCLUDES you this time - promise!" to POC. Smells kinda like horseshit to me, too.
Great video. It’s so refreshing to not be in an echo chamber. And I’ve definitely had my eyes opened up to some realities I’ve missed from primarily consuming white socialism. However, I still think socialism aimed at addressing class issue would have the direct effect of getting a lot of the implications of racist rhetoric aimed at keeping non write people as lower class citizens. (I also so support reparations, which to be clear I’m not sure is part of socialist beliefs). That said I’ve witnessed first hand that racism is predominantly entrenched ignorance, so replacing that ignorance with the truth would be the solution I’d think. In that sense, I believe that even though socialism won’t end racism overnight (because nothing will), without socialism, we can’t (or at least it’s way more difficult) to eradicate racism.
Fantastic vid! Data point of one, but I'm of the firm belief that reparations are an essential part of reaching the kind of social parity necessary for socialism to ever come about. Of course for slavery, but also for other issues as well. Part of the process to legalize drugs MUST address the disproportionate harm caused by the war on drugs. Part of housing reforms needs to address the generational harms of redlining and the racial wealth disparity such policies caused. Part of universal healthcare is addressing the systemic racism inherent in the medical field in both the care patients receive and who has the ability to become a provider. If something is structurally wrong with my house; I need to identify the problem, assess the damage it's caused, and then enact a solution that fixes the core issue AND repairs the surrounding damage. If I skip any of these steps, I'm just going to have more problems down the line. Unrelated, anyone know a good general contractor the does foundation repair in the west Chicago suburbs area? I have a wall that is being swallowed by the earth.
bruh what i want to know is, and i know damn well i subbed to you at least 3 times, fourth time now. first time was way back in 2014. but still youtube has got to be removing people im subbed too and i dont like that at all. its happened with a couple other youtubers i like to follow, that just so happen to be black. im not trying to rile feathers and cause a hustle. i just find it to weird to ignore, even as a white man. CoryXKenshin really brought this to light and youtube is sweating its robotic fluids out right now trying to figure out how to contain it.
During the 2016 and 2020 elections, I saw many conservatives state that socialism always leads to slavery, completely ignoring that American capitalism is predicated on slavery.
From a double marginalized perspective (North-African agnostic) this resonates with me. Although I consider my political views leaning towards the socialist side, I feel little to no support for my struggles, and often even feel silenced by my allies when I engage in constructive criticism of the MENA community.
It’s a fair counterpoint. However, if we’re going to engage with what the (possibly not generous enough) critique says about Bernie and race, we have to take it more seriously than to just come back with that. Whether or not that one line he said in front of a crowd stands up to scrutiny, there’s still a huge perception among black people that Bernie collapses their experience into that of workers and doesn’t speak enough to their concerns and struggles.
@@dingdongism That's fair, and I'm not attempting to sweep that under the rug. It just annoyed me that he has spent decades supporting the cause and attempting to illustrate that is somehow 'I have a black friend.' It also looked like he was preparing to say more when he got booed.
So this is an amazing video and something I have been wrestling with as I read over a lot of theory. I find the inability for DSA to go beyond tokenism and to build meaningful bridges with marginalized communities frustrating and wish we as an org took more seriously. I think on the national level DSA should focus on centering anti-racism, inclusivity, and economic reparations to Black and Indigenous people through which we could actually build a kind of class consciousness that addresses so many peoples problems and from there with a strong foundation of actually solidarity push forth progressive policies that dismantle the corrupt foundation which our society exists on. I don't know where to start and I honestly don't think I as a white man should have much say in how that starts but I would like to be as helpful as I can in achieving a better society that treats all it's peoples with the same kind of kindness I have received for being the default definition of a person. this was a great video thanks.
What was irritating to me with the southern dsa chapter I was in was having white folks constantly tailing behind the opinuins of rad black folks and poc that did come out, and the liberal/risk-averse bias of the org end up pushing those rad poc out. You have a 50 yo back socialist come through and say to a group of supposed white socialists that 'capitalism is socialism for the ruling class' and get argued with about nuance/semantics and ignored when he makes suggestions about praxis (which in my view were right to begin with). And then people wonder what went wrong with that organizing.... Tbh, if white folks in these orgs practiced the w.a.i.t. strategy (ask yourself why am I talking when in group that aren't all white, and then wait to see if it's essential for them specifically to say shit someone else might say), even that tiny step would make a difference. Aah rant into the void over. Thanks for the insightful video.
In regards to reperations, I would say that while income equality is the outcome, there is a long way to go before we hit that, and reperations would be one of the first steps on the stairway to income equality.
Just wanted to leave a comment and show my appreciation. Really love your videos. You as a creator are a really great example of what it means to give language to people to describe their lives and this is so empowering! Thank you!
There’s some very valid criticism to engage with here, specially when it comes it comes to the Black National question. I’d refer you to Harry Haywood on this front, but generally, nationalism of oppressed groups is a powerful tool to bring about social change. I can personally attest while I was learning of this movement that I fell for a class reductionist approach to solving social inequalities (whether tied to the oppression of women, racial/ethnic minorities, etc) but as I’ve developed politically and learned more on this topic, it’s become clear that socialist thought has you engage with the historical progress of society. Socialism is, at the end of the day, the reversal of the current order and thus inherently unequal (check Critique of the Gotha Programme). It’s not a light switch that erases racism, but rather a framework in which the allocation of resources is democratically pushed towards bringing about equity. Most of the socialists I’ve spoken to understand that reparations to Black, Natives, and other oppressed groups is imperative for bringing about the egalitarian society they want.
Hi, it’s me again. Found a good video that may speak on some of the concerns you may have: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-a5J1j4Sc_6M.html
At least here in Canada I'd say that black folks are more receptive to left-wing politics, mainly stemming from most of us being of Caribbean descent. Often our parents lived under socialist/radical social democratic governments (such as Michael Manley in Jamaica) who invested heavily in healthcare, education, women's rights, wage increases, and black liberation. Another thing that I find to be very interesting: a lot of Caribbean folks also have a huge amount of respect for Cuba and Fidel Castro in particular due to their massive health and education initiatives. Far preferred to the neoliberalism that was often imposed on the region by the US.
I'm glad to see more voices talking about the issues in the DSA. (This is from someone who has lurked in my local chapter in the past) I was first thinking about this when another RU-vidr was talking about a controversy over the DSA Los Angeles convention (it was at a church that historically anti black sentiments). The way some of the chapter leaders reacted to this were telling The second thing was noticing what was up in my local DSA chapter. A lot of the focus was on unions, abortion rights, and universal medical care. There wasn't a lot about how race or immigration status tied to it (also weirdly silent on anti trans attacks). The audience in those Zoom meetings was also mostly fellow white folks who presumably have taken some form of higher education. There are land acknowledgements in the start of the DSA meetings, but it didn't go much further than that from what I remember So yeah, I think it's important to see how this organization has strained some relationships since they're the most visible democratic socialists and socialists in the US.
I still think that economic systems that encourage wealth inequality and selfishness should be broken down, but not acknowledging how those systems also target BIPOC folks won't let people create solutions that work for everyone. (E.g. We need anti racism in the equation as you noted in the video) As an aside, I'm glad that you mentioned black and other BIPOCs with socialist views in 19:00 since they exist and have existed in history
3:10 I always wondered why every black male I knew had wanted to be a rapper. To was ubiquitous enough that the first time my brother expressed an interest in music the teacher assumed he was interested in rap and tried steering him in that direction without listening to him further (he likes music with heavy bass like trap music). My brother would never be interested in rap for the simple fact that teachers made him HATE all things related to Black people and used him being Black and unusual (and from a single parent home without knowing the reason for the single parent situation) as all the justification they needed to treat him as a future criminal that needed to be hurried off to juvenile detention centers/schools or a foster home. They broke my brother. 20 years later and he's still afraid to leave the house in case he gets accused of something he didn't do but doesn't have an alibi. If my brother wasn't so confident in his own self worth, the treatment of the teachers would have literally led to bullicide before his pre-teens ended. Racism amongst the middle and upper classes is so real and we were maybe on the lower end of middle class.
As someone from a capitalist country with socialist institutions (healthcare, education, etc.) and continuing problems with systemic racism, I'm here to tell you democratic socalism in practice will not abolish captialism, nor does it offer a solution to oppression on any basis other than class. It does give you free healthcare and education though, which is cool
@@ayde92829 I reckon you're right that a lot of the US's social issues would be at least lessened by more economic equality, but that's not exactly a great pitch in itself, as T1J points out. If Step 1 the democratic socialist solution to racism is to create a post-inequality utopia, people of colour are right to suspect it's not going to happen, or at least it's low on the list of priorities
I think what Bernie was trying to say is that he’s been a staunch supporter for civil rights since Martin Luther King. Not that he has a black friend. I don’t know why Black people are so up in arms about this.
