A flashback: a week ago, Prof. Adolph Reed was forced to cancel his speech before a Democratic Socialists of America event in New York.
If allowed to speak, it was expected that Reed would have argued that the American Left’s laser-like focus on identity politics (currently the emphasis is on racial identity) was counterproductive. It seems many within DSA – especially many blacks – disagree with Reed’s position. Instead, they opposed, to change that emphasis in pursuit of class solidarity was preposterous. Apparently Reed’s stance was “reactionary, class reductionist and at best, tone deaf”.
His stance was, in other words, anathema. And so they gagged him.
The thing is Adolph Reed (a well-known Marxist, in a country where it takes guts to call oneself a Marxist) is not only a distinguished academic, socialist, and long-time civil rights activist, he is also black.
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It seems Prof. Cornel West, another prominent black academic and socialist, was among the few speaking in Reed’s defense. Alas, he ain’t popular – at least among the white Liberal/Leftish – so he can be safely ignored.
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The present: The Democratic National Convention is on.
Democratic supporters are excited with the explicit endorsement Joe Biden and Kamala Harris received from a number of former Republican heavy hitters. A recent list: John Kasich, Carly Fiorina, David Durenberger, Gordon J. Humphrey, John Warner, Jeff Flake, Susan Molinari, Charles Djou, and Joe Walsh.
And that’s not counting high-placed veterans of the Trump Administration and media personalities who crossed the road; or current and former Republican big wigs (Chris Coons, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, and Francis Rooney and Jeb and George W. Bush), who, without endorsing the Biden/Harris pair, are not backing the Pussy-Grabber in Chief either.
As far as I can tell, with the exception of Colin Powell, all of them white; and I’d bet not a single one of them would take it kindly if you called them “socialist”.
And yet nobody, that I am aware, has refused them their say. Quite to the contrary.
Even Michelle Obama, in her address to the Democratic National Convention, appealed to those who four years earlier, for whatever reason, “sent someone to the Oval Office who lost the national popular vote by nearly 3,000,000 votes.”
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| Mark Anthony Urquiza,Trump voter killed by COVID-19. RIP (source) |
You know, the “(white) working class” -- in Chris Bertram’s unforgettable expression -- that alone was blamed for Trump’s victory.
Has the DSA distanced themselves from that?
So, to rely on anti-Trump solidarity, unlike class solidarity, is not preposterous.
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I know there’s no point in explaining this to the American and British Liberal/Leftish, so if you are one, feel free to leave. I am writing this with Australian socialists in mind.
This may be merely wishful thinking, but I still hope the irony will not be lost on readers with a firmer grip on reality, perhaps not yet extinct in Australia: all blacks and all socialists were created equal, but Adolph Reed, a Marxist, apparently is way less equal than his censors.
Thus they dropped him into the basket of deplorables.
Let’s try to avoid falling into that kind of madness here.
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Let me coin a term: “identity reductionism”. It’s as vacuous as “class reductionism” but sounds just as philosophical. (Two can play that game :-D ).
UPDATE:
21/08/2020. Corrected to make it clear that the DSA has no control over the DNC.
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