A COMMENTARY ON SOCIALISM, LEFTIST WHITE MALES, AND THE REFUTATION OF THE IMPACT OF RACISM AND SEXISM ON ECONOMIC VIOLENCE

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The following commentary is my response to Yolanda Carrington, Julian Real, and AradhanaD over at The Primary Contradiction, Yolanda’s blogsite.

The post is titled:  “The Race-Gender Character of Marxists”, (http://www.genderracepower.com/?p=29#comment-1726),  and many comments in response to the post, most notably, AradhanaD’s comment, previous comment on the tread,  “You Tell Me”,  (http://www.genderracepower.com/?p=220comment-1727), dated March 31ST, 2007, which is where she referenced the thread,  “The Race-Gender Character of Marxists”, http://www.genderracepower.com/?p=29#comment-313 .

I responded to the issue of socialism, communism and economic violence, and how economic violence feeds off of  the intersections of racism, sexism, and all the other “isms” that flourish in America.

Here is my commentary.

March 31st, 2007.

Never having been in any way a fan of Marx, socialism, nor especially communism (well, afterall, I am a child of the “duck-and-cover era”), I never could reconcile myself with an ideology that said all “We have to do is get rid of capitalism, and everything will be hunky-dory.” Even at a very young age, still trying to understand communism, I still saw nothing but illogical insanity in that line of thinking and the concepts of communism. Besides, white males will never allow for socialism to reign in capitalist-driven America. As long as it means that EVERYONE gets a piece of the pie, as opposed to just white males hogging all of the pie to themselves, this country will go on working overtime to keep white males in power. And there is no way in Hell that white-male run America will give up power and privilege without a bloody to-the-death fight.

Just goes to show you: white men will be white men in the end, whether capitalist, or socialist.

Besides, I don’t want any of that rat-infested, maggot-filled pie.

I’ll make my own pie.

At least I will know what goes into it. (character, integrity, honor, moral restraint, fairness, decency).

Economic violence comes out of many things that attribute to economic violence: gender, race, religion, national origin, etc. You cannot get rid of class/economic violence until you get rid of racism, sexism, sexualized/gendered racism, religious bigotry, national origin bigotry, etc. And that, I’m sorry to say, will not happen as long as humans live on this planet.

I agree with you that the mainly white male communist party must accept that POC have their own ideas about what works best for them in their unique struggle. They know better than any white male what harms and impacts their communities in ways that white males will never know. And to dismiss the struggles AND histories of POC discounts and disregards the long history many POC have had to fight for the most basic of rights: Black Americans of the Civil Rights Movement; Latinos of the migrant farmworkers; Native American organizations such as AIM.

“For all the shit that they’ve got to put up with from being paycheck-to-paycheck laborers, white male workers are still white men. They possess a lived-on-the-skin experience as unconditional human beings, personhood without qualifications. That is something that no woman or person of color on the planet can claim. At the end of the day, white men are protected by a social contract that was purpose-designed to exclude women and people of color. The class struggle that undergirds the capitalist system is a struggle between the dominant and subordinate classes of white men. How in the hell would a victory against this system, as it’s configured now, benefit women and POC? Would workers who’ve had the lifelong benefit of unconditional personhood all of a sudden extend the fabled workers’ victory to those who’ve been long-denied personhood without a struggle? I think not. And this, my friends, is why race and gender-based struggle exists.”

White males, no matter how poor, no matter how rich, all share the same card-carrying membership: WHITE-SKIN MALE PRIVILEGE, and all others need not apply.

And white males want no one to join their 24-hour fitness club of white male privilege that is supported by the subjugation and oppression of all women and POC.

And the poorest white male, who wants so desparately to join the Gold’s Gym of white malehood, the white ruling class, chafes at knowing that were it not for their white skin, and their blind support of the rich white males who exploit them just as much as they exploit POC, these same poor white males would be just as ground into the dust just as much as any POC all are. But, since the poor white males believed all the lies, and accepted all the scraps that rich white men threw them (to keep poor white males from aligning in solidarity with the slaves and Indians, and even today, keeps him from joining forces with POC), he is willing to live a paycheck away from starvation just to keep from allowing POC to be on an equal standing with him.

And as for sexism, this country thrives on the degredation of women: prostitution [I’ve always believed that the prostitutors [commonly known as ‘johns’] are the real criminals and should be locked up for contributing to the on-going system of prostitution]; the abuse and battery of women by husbands, boyfriends, and the way the legal system sends women to their deaths in the cavalier treatment of abusive husbands/boyfriends with the useless restaining order papers which do not a damn thing to protect women from murderous husbands/boyfrineds.

And the feminization of poverty.

And the racialization of poverty.

And the misogynistic hatred of pornography.

For what is pornography if not outright hatred for the spirits, minds and bodies of women and girl and boy children?

And the gendered/racism of many types of work that women do [many WOC do the menial jobs of cleaning motels/hotels, caring for people in nursing homes], and the foreign-born non-English speaking WOC who work in the garment industry, who do sweat-shop/piece-meal work for just cents a day working in conditions that are no better than slave labor.

The worship of all things white male of this society, and the debasement of all things POC, especially WOC, keeps power in the hands of white males. And this society drives its engine of power from the ground-up bodies of POC, which are nothing but oil, machinery, and spare parts to be used for the ease of white males.

“Hey y’all…tell me about it. My pet peeve: Black folks who won’t acknowlege the white supremacy other folks of color face, and non-black POC who can’t see that antiblack racism still exists. They all piss me off. Makes me want to bang my head against a wall.”

I try to keep myself from falling into that. I try to remember that while on the one hand I am trying to fight off racism/sexism as a black woman, I must also not forget the people of various races who can work in solidarity with black people against the juggernaught of white supremacy. I know that there are times when it seems as if I am holding off WMS with my right hand, and trying to concentrate on all that it entails to prevail against WMS, but, on the otherhand, with my left hand, I am trying to work with other POC on their oppression as well, and to always be mindful, not to be too caught up in my people’s history that I forget about the other POC’s issues that have just as much validity to them as mine do to me.

On the other hand, other POC should remember that black people have done nothing to them in any way racist, the way white America has, in trying to destroy anyone in this country who does not have white skin. Many times black Americans have come to the rescue of POC during their times of need, and if more POC knew of the times of solidarity that black Americans gave Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, etc., they would see and face the fact that black people are NOT THE ENEMY. And never have been. If it was not for the countless lives that black people lost to gain just the most basic of human rights during the fight against slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and the push for Affirmative Action, to name just a few social movements, many POC would not have the rights to citizenship, the right to vote, the right to fair housing, the right to many things they enjoy today.

And other POC should learn of their history of alliances with black Americans over the decades: Chinese-Americans with the Black Panthers; Cesar Chavez and the migrant workers of the Southwest and Dr. King’s non-violent movement, to name just a few.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: When you know your history, no one can f++k with you.

No one.

AD.

“To many of the white men everything is bourgeois. This includes art, having known many activist artists – I am shocked that even contemporary marxists hold this view about art.”

And that’s very stupid of them.

Have they never heard of, or seen, Picasso’s “Guernica?”

And what about Gordon Park’s, “American Gothic”, and his reasons behind why he created this most famous photo?

It is the power of art, be it a painting, a photograph, or a collage to be a weapon against racism, sexism, ageism, classism, anti-lesbian/homasexual/transgenderedism, and all the other “isms” out there in the world.

On April 1st, 2007, Julian said:

For me that was a powerful and excellent comment, Ann!!!

I am wondering where you got the term “prostitutor” from. If I use it in my writings, I’d like to credit you with it, as we have LOOOOOOONG needed another term than the benign “john” for men who sexually exploit and abuse prostituted women. If you came up with it, please let Yolanda know if it’s OK for her to tell me your full name, so I may properly credit you. (You know some white person, probably a white man, will get credit for it otherwise!!!)

On April 1st, 2007, AradhanaD said:

Ann, you made my heart sing!!!! Can you put this up on your blog too?

On April 1st, 2007, Ann said:

Julian.

“I am wondering where you got the term “prostitutor” from. If I use it in my writings, I’d like to credit you with it, as we have LOOOOOOONG needed another term than the benign “john” for men who sexually exploit and abuse prostituted women.”

You know, Julian,as I wrote my comment, I thought, “Who else but the john is the prostitute?” So, prostitutor came to mind. No matter why a woman is in prostitution, I have never looked down on them, and maybe that is because I am a black woman who was born and raised in the American South. There was (and I am still sure that this saying is still prevalent in the minds of many people, if not on the lips of many people):

“A black woman, no matter how decent, no matter how virginal, was considered as lower than a white prostitute.”

That is how this country has treated black women: during slavery, during Jim Crow segregation, all the way up to the 1970s, it was considered okay and exhorted by the white racist society that to rape a black woman carried with it none of the same considerations or punishment that raping a white woman entailed.

In essence, black women were considered born sluts.

Unrapeble.

There is also another saying in the white-run South at the time I was growing up as a child that was said to white males:

“You are not (were not) considered a man unless you laid down with and had sex with a black woman.”

So, you can probably see how I feel about this issue of prostitution. I come from a race of women who were considered as being the birthright of white men to use us as sexual toilets, as prostitutes, as less than an animal, with no human regard whatsoever for our feelings.

And, judging from the miniscule amount of IRs between WM/BW, as opposed to the IRs of BM/WW, this shows very blatantly that some white men even today, in 2007,  must STILL only want black women for sex, to degrade us, if they could, the way white father, and white grand-daddy mistreated black women and girls.

One black man (if he was crazy enough, or better yet, suicidal enough to do such a thing, knowing full well the consequences for both him, and the black community, which is why it was unheard of for a black man during segregation to rape a white woman), could rape a white woman, and the ENTIRE black community would be destroyed along with him.

But, ONE white man could rape thousands of black women and girls, and not a damn thing would be done about it.

That black women have distrust and fear of white men even in 2007 America, is an understatement. That black women have fear of many men of other races because we see how some of them dismiss us as being irrelevant, and invisible, because of the racist hates that some men have internalized from the lies that white men told about us black women to justify the 400+ years of sexualized gendered hatred against us, also fills us with fear of men of other races who show as well their love of white women over black women, instead of seeing the beauty, inside and outside, that a black woman can offer.

So, on the issue of prostitution, I have deep empathy for them, having come from a race of women who were called (and still are called) prostitute/slut/whore (all those lovely terms hurled into our faces on a daily basis by fine, stalwart, highly-moraled upstanding white men) just because of our race, just because of the color of our skin.

We black women knew who the prostitutors were. We knew who the bitches were. We knew who the sluts were. Those of lighter hue of the opposite sex only have to look in the mirror every day to see what a prostitutor was.

And it certainly is not black women and girls.

I also have empathy and solidarity with the Korean women survivors who were held against their will as sex slaves of the imperialist Japanese military. Women who were treated as if they too were to be prostitutes for the sick sadistic rapacious abombinations of soldiers who used them as sexual toilets.

I have empathy and solidarity with the thousands of women, children and men who were destroyed during Japan’s vicious campaign of genocide during the Rape of Nanking in 1937-1938.

As a black woman, I come from a race of women who know what it is to be devalued, degraded, debased, defiled, denounced and destroyed on a daily basis, both in the PAST, and in the PRESENT.

We black women know what it is to be given looks of derision and vulgarity, when we walk into a room, leave out the door from our employment just to walk across the street to a lunch cafe, when we enter into an elevator, when we look a man in the eye, and see time after time, the sexist contempt that some men can show in their eyes towards us.

 We know what sufering is for women of other races who have suffered for being just what they are, just for what they were born into this world as:  WOMEN.

But, we black women also know and remember what our black grandmothers told us:

“Suffering  is  seasoning.”

And because of our history in this country, and in this world, we have been seasoned through the fire, the destructive attacks upon our bodies, our minds and our souls.

And we have all survived.

All of us:  Korean, Native American, Chinese, and all the First Nation and Aboriginal women sisters of the world have survived.

Yes, you have my permission to use this term, but, I do have something to tell you.

After I read your comment, I thought, hmm, you know, I may have invented a new word, because that is something I have actually done on some occasions when I did not want to use a word that everyone else was using. But, when I looked in the dictionary under prostitute, there it was “Prostitutor: to devote to corrupt or unworthy purposes: DEBASE”.

SO.

Prostitutor is already taken.

Hmm.

Well, I guess I’d better invent another word.

How does “Prostitutan” sound?

(prostitute/man= prostitutan: a person of the male sex who debases, corrupts and introduces into a life of prostitution, a young girl, or a woman)

How does that one sound?

[Sorry for the long-winded essay to your question, but, that’s how I’ve felt about prostitutes. Even though I never been in that life, still, I come from a race of women who know what it is to be looked upon as less than human just because men of another race who have defiled us for so long and have tried to cover up and justify their degredations and atrocities they’ve committed against us with the worst kind of blame the victim lies the world has ever known.]

And, still we RISE.

So, go on ahead and use my newly-invented term.

At least I know that that term is definately not in Merriam Webster’s.

AD.

“Ann, you made my heart sing!!!! Can you put this up on your blog too?”

Yes, I can do that.

You know, AD, for the longest, last year many people had been imploring me to create my own blog. Heck, I wrote enough essays and comments over on so many other people’s blogs that they were impressed with what I had to say. (One recent blog owner who I started visiting a few months ago, even asked me MY opinion on some posts he had put up. And after perusing his blog, it was evident that I was the FIRST person whose opinion he had asked for on some of his posts. Well, I guess I do have something good to say after all. But, truth be told, he was not the first person to consider my words/opinion as having weight and validity. Many have. I just speak from the heart, honestly, and candidly. No lies. The truth. Straight, no chaser. That’s me.)

And I would like a visit every now and then from some of you if ya’ll feel like paying a visit to my site.

It gets kind of lonely over there, but, I still post if only because I love writing, especially when it is for the uplift and celebration of black women and girls…….

…..for beautiful, also, are the souls of my black sisters.

 

 

posted by Ann

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