ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION
By Collectivist Action
“. . .I fear I may have integrated my people into a burning house!”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
https://youtu.be/aigPjtLujWM?si=8Ap3u9g4bRtMor6Q
The ‘official’ fascist dismissal by the Trump administration of D.E.I. , ie, diversity, equity and inclusion, is based on a strawman argument: that the historic struggles for social justice and human rights are really movements to: 1) promote discrimination against males and people-classified-as-white.
The ultimate goal of D.E.I, according to Trump regime, is to undermine meritocracy and promote identity politics and Marxism.
First of all, if D.E.I. is anything at all, it is a multicultural, liberal, mostly middle class-led movement to socially integrate the U.S. nation state, after the defeat of Reconstruction at the end of the 19th century.. After the Supreme Court ruling on Plessy vs Ferguson many multicultural, self-professed reformers, including advocates for Women’s Liberation, and other social issues , saw social integration as THE path to liberation, in spite of the terroristic opposition to it, every step of the way, on the part of virulent white nationalistic and misogynistic social forces, often aided & abetted by the federal government.
Nevertheless, by the 1960s, the U.S. could still be defined as a highly segregated apartheid state.The Kerner Report - the findings of an official investigation of that period - said that America was actually two separate nations; separate and grossly unequal. (I can remember riding through Louisiana in 1975 and not being served in a restaurant, and seeing black and white people in rural Mississippi living in shacks.
The most radical forces in U.S. social justice movements have not fighting for D.E.I. The staunchest advocates for human rights - from black liberationists to women’s liberationists - were not only, for the most part, uninterested in social integration (as the road to freedom and justice), but often diametrically opposed to it. Many self-identified panafricanists, for example,, are struggling to be ‘independent’ of the U.S. nation state itself. Many indigenous people want ‘landback”. Others want revolution.
What obscures the current controversy over the fascist ‘outlawing’ of D.E.I. is the fact that one wing of the political ruling class bird-of-prey, the Democratic Party, endorses D.E.I., or, at least, pretends it does.. Consequently, large swathes of social justice movements remain stymied or paralyzed in regards to how to approach this conundrum.
Certainly, genuine leftists always knew that the liberal wing of the ruling class embraces policies and programs like D.E.I. to undermine struggles for fundamental social transformation. Always reluctant to reach to the roots of political/economic struggles they prefer ‘solutions’ that merely focus on the ‘identity politics’ of race and sexual orientation rather than class. Thus, the cataclysmic social rebellions of 2020, like the ones before, meant that they needed to double-down on D.E.I., especially the lipservice.
Moreover, for many working class and poor people the fight for social justice was/is, primarily, a fight for equal access to vital resources, goods and services; an ‘inalienable HUMAN RIGHT. Living and working in close proximity to affluent and privileged people in the society, or becoming part of the capitalist ruling class, was never the main goal. Whenever it was sought and fought for at all it was to the degree it facilitated that access.
However, in the 3d decade of the 21s century, despite significant progress, we still have:
mass school and housing segregation
the continued mass incarceration of black and brown people, ie, the New Jim Crow
suppression of women’s reproductive rights and continued opposition to reproductive justice
repression and cultural aggression against indigenous populations
and the ‘beat’ goes on
Since the fascist forces which regained control of the state (on MlK’s birthday, circa 2025) have made D.E.I. (along with ‘ illegal’ immigration) a major tenet of their assault on social justice movements, we in those movements MUST unequivocally oppose their efforts. However, our opposition must be clearly DISTINGUISHED from the liberal opposition to them.. As much as we uphold, and have been some of the most resolute fighters for equal access to all of the vital resources, goods and services ON EARTH, as radicals and leftists, we realize that access, let alone integration, won’t, by themselves, free us NOR provide a path to liberation. The road to freedom MUST be, first & foremost, about attaining local, state and federal POLITICAL POWER, and collectively gaining control of the means and relationships of production and reproduction.
We know that Trump, inc. and the gang of reactionaries and deplorables empowering it are objectively and subjectively opposed to social equality, social justice and human rights.. Not unlike the colonial founders of the country they remain committed as ever to the identity politics of either male or white supremacist rule. Both have been part and parcel, or pillars , of capitalist rule. The American Way.
Also, the most ideological white and male supremacists have never gotten over the debilitating blows they suffered because of the periodic emergence of powerful social justice movements every time they raised their ugly, racist, patriarchal heads. Thus, “Make America Great Again”, is their battle cry, their rebel yell; “circle the wagons” and “rally around the flag”. The very shrill opposition to Critical Race Theory (CRT) is another aspect of, not only the white nationalist backlash and resistance to accepting a more accurate narrative of U.S. history, but also another ruling class attempt to obscure and/or erase the despicable history of settler colonialism, chattel slavery and patriarchal domination, and other abominations that as Frederick Douglass told us, “would disgrace a nation of savages.”
This is what their Project 2025 is really all about.
If upholding ‘meritocracy’ is the reason, as Trump said, for outlawing D.E.I., rather than white nationalism and misogyny, etc., he would have never qualified for ANY political office, let alone the presidency.
People should not be fooled. Advocacy FOR & AGAINST D.E.I. are both trojan horses: neoliberals PROMOTE D.E.I., primarily to continue their cooptaton of leftist movements. Neoconservatives and fascists, OPPOSE D.E.I. it in order to stop the liberals, who they claim objectively, if not subjectively, aid and abet leftism. . .?
On January 20th the whole world saw the principal players in the ruling class alliance standing solidly together with the fascist, imperial commander-in-chief; ranging from former opponent Kamala Harris, to rabid reactionary Margerie Greene; from liberal Mark Zuckerberg to ‘heil Hitler’ Elon Musk.
WE know that the only real solution to white supremacist, patriarchal class oppression is to DISMANTLE the system itself, ie., the rule of genocidal and ecocidal imperialism. . .by any means necessary.
“We have to keep in mind at all times that we are not fighting for integration, nor are we fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as free humans in this society.”
Malcolm X
https://youtu.be/9V4DxMGlWhU?si=iNn5EWTAfpbySHKO
COMMUNITY CONTROL NOW!
January 2025
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