Diversity, Equity & Inclusion or Class Struggle, Community Control and Socialist Reconstruction?
By Collectivist Action
Part 4 of 4
“. . .Men and women live on a stage on which they act out their assigned roles equal in importance. . . Neither of them is marginal or dispensable. But the stage is conceived, painted and defined by men. Men have written the play, have directed it. . .assigned themselves the most interesting, most heroic parts, giving women the supporting roles.. .
The women finally, after considerable struggle, win the right of access to equal role assignment, but first they must ‘qualify’. The terms of their qualifications are again set by the men; men are the judges of how women measure up. Men grant or deny admission. . . “
Gerda Lerner (3)
A group of black women, formed in 1974, calling themselves the Combahee River Collective issued a provocative political statement in 1977. In it they articulated some of the major views of radical black women of the period.
After stating that African American women’s oppression is “embodied in the concept of identity politics” the statement goes on to say:
“We believe that SEXUAL POLITICS are as pervasive in Black women’s lives as are the politics of race and class. We also find it difficult to separate race and class from sex oppression, because in our lives they are most often experienced simultaneously.”
The Combahee declaration made it clear that their collective was not ‘separatist’ or anti-male, nor anti-white, ” and recognized that “the liberation of oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political economic systems of capitalism and imperialism, as well as patriarchy.”
One of the main ‘thought leaders’ of feminist and leftist politics during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, bell hooks, has said that these social justice movements, “though not identical, were interconnected”.
Diversity,equality and inclusion are not mentioned as major concerns or objectives in the Combahee River Collective declaration nor the writings and lectures of bell hooks.
So, what exactly are we fighting for NOW?
Well, first of all, our lives have always mattered to US.
Secondly it should be clear by now that the Black Liberation Movement and the class struggle consist of a multiplicity of struggles with different strategies and tactics, if not different aims and objectives.
Thirdly, NO ONE SHOULD ASSUME THAT EVERYONE IS FIGHTING FOR THE SAME THING. . .even if they claim to be.
Fourthly, we must always ask the question: what’s the end goal(s). . .?
In her provocative work, Latina Visions of a Multicolored Century, Elizabeth Martinez advocates for:
abolishing the prevailing definition of the United States as a nation with a singular or dominant culture and identity
AND
Reimagining the U.S. as a COMMUNITY OF COMMUNITIES that recognize their inextricable INTERDEPENDENCE and SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS on the basis of respect.
I concur with this rather simply stated vision of the future of what we presently know as the USA.
The only thing I would add would be INEXTRICABLE policies and practices of controlling and sharing vital national resources and the recognition that, in the final analysis, THE EARTH BELONGS TO EVERYONE on it.
Another radical reconstruction is indeed necessary; one that eventually and fundamentally changes the social organization of society and the political and economic relationships, and replaces the rule of capital with the rule of the working class.
The 1st reconstruction, which ostensibly began in 1867 and lasted about ten years fell woefully short of its stated goals. . . Yes, the slave owner-led insurgency was defeated on the battlefield. An unlikely alliance of industrial capitalists, abolitionists and armed black and white men broke the back of chattel slavery in North America. However, it was replaced with the rule of ‘wage-rent-and-salary slave owners. The patriarchal and capitalistic systems, policies and practices remained, for the most part, intact.
A credible case can be made that a 2nd reconstruction occurred in North America between the 1960s and 1980s. That reconstruction gradually dismantled legal social segregation and integrated a minority of women and people of color into the ruling class, but did not fundamentally alter economic relationships nor politically empower poor and working class people. The means of production and the state remained under the rule of capitalist interests.
Thus, we need a 3rd reconstruction. . .
Following the murder of black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in 2013, activists Alicia Garza, Patriss Cullors and Opal Tometi originated the hashtag #blacklivesmatter on Twitter. The movement gained international attention during global protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. According to wikipedia, an estimated 15 to 26 million people took part in blm-initiated protests in the U.S. that year, making it one of the largest protests in world history.
In their original 'Preamble' of 2016, the founders stated:
". . .We are intentional about amplifying the particular experiences of racial, economic, gender-based state and personal violence that black women, queer, trans, gender nonconforming, intersex and disabled people face. Cisheteropatriarchy and ableism are central and instrumental to anti-blackness and racial capitalism, and have been internalized within our communities and movements. . ."
Since the above was written, Black Lives Matter has undergone many changes, positive and negative, in both its policies and practices.
However, for the purposes of this paper, it is important to note that has been little to no focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Many of us on the U.S. left unite with the fundamental mission of the Cooperation Jackson movement in Mississippi and find it to be relevant to our overarching global mission, specifically:
to place control of the means of production in the hands of the working class
build and advance the ecologically regenerative forces of production, i.e., preserve and expand the natural wealth & the Commons (the social and natural wealth that is our birthright as humans)
democratically transform the political economy
We also agree with Cooperation Jackson that, mainly because of automation and ‘capital flight’, NOT cheap labor coming across the southern border, causing African American workers to become obsolete.
“. . .Once the driving force behind the U.S. economy, and producing over half of the country’s wealth during the antebellum period, the Black working class is now a surplus population, one confronting ever greater levels of exploitation, precariousness and material desperation as a direct result of the process and forces of globalization and automation. To deal with the crisis of Black labor redundancy the ruling class has responded by creating a multi pronged strategy of limited incorporation, counterinsurgency and mass containment. . .
The strategem of limited incorporation sought to and has partially succeeded in dividing the Black community by class, as corporations and the state have been able to take in and utilize the skills of the black petit bourgeoisie and working class for their own benefit. The strategem of counterinsurgency crushed, divided and severely weakened Black organizations, particularly black revolutionary organizations.. The strategem of containment resulted in millions of Black people effectively being re-enslaved and warehoused in prisons throughout the U.S. empire.” (4)
WE presently face a world crisis rooted in a contradiction in which the insatiable quest to maximize corporate profits, and the political power that comes with and protects them, are slowly and not-so-slowly making Planet Earth INHOSPITABLE to life as-we-know-it.
Clearly our entire relationship to the natural world has been distorted and/or disfigured..
For conscious and conscientious people this crisis undergirds most of the critical, seemingly intractable social and natural dilemmas we face as a species and should not be taken lightly. If survival and prosperity, in the short or long term, are important to us, along with maintaining a sustainable environment for future generations, we must harness all of our collective energies to mitigate, if not eliminate, this existential crisis.
Lest we forget, no matter which party controls the federal government (the State), or any of the 50 states and territories known collectively as the USA, the rule of capital continues because BOTH parties are unequivocally committed to it.
Only their strategies and tactics are generally different.
Although not beyond employing fascistic methods of rule, the (neo)liberal’s primary national approach to ruling has been the paternalistic, “we know what’s good for you”
What’s good for us???
D.E.I. of course.
Therefore, we should be highly offended and opposed to the Republican Party’s fascistic 'Project 2025' which says, among other things, that they intend:
“. . .to treat the participation of any government department in any race theory or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as grounds for termination of employment as they violate constitutional and moral principles”
Really?
I guess they know what's NOT good for us. . .?
WE say:
Many of us NEVER thought our primary goal was D.E.I. NOR are we now under the illusion that D.E.I would secure the freedom, justice and material prosperity we seek.
Even ‘equity,’ at the end of the day, means very little as long as the current social system remains intact.
Instead, our essential struggles, objectively, if not subjectively, revolve around:
Community Control/Intercommunalism
Class Struggle (ending the rule of capital)
Socialist Reconstruction (the transition to a classless society)
AND last, but not least:
the end of white and male supremacist policies and practices
the restoration, preservation and expansion of The Commons/common wealth
FREE PALESTINE!!!
References:
1. Joann Wypijewski, Reproductive Rights and the Long Hand of Slave Breeding, The Nation, 3/21/2012
2. Paul Street, The Real Constitutional Crisis: The Constitution, Counterpunch, 11/18/2019
3. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, Pgs. 12-13
4. Kali Akuno & Ajamu Nangwaya, Jackson Rising, Pgs. 8-9
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