Understanding Systemic Racism with Gayatri Spivak, Yosan Alemu, Nwakego Nwasike, and Brent Edwards

Columbia University Professor Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak with Yosan Alemu (CC'21) and Nwakego Nwasike (Alumna American Studies at CSER), moderated by Brent Hayes Edwards (Peng Professor of English and Comparative Literature) discuss "Isaac Woodard and Isabel Wilkerson." Recorded on September 25, 2020 at Columbia University.

[@Cyberphunkisms]

"access to intellectual labor" ~ ie the very modus Operandi of socialism ~ has been destroyed by this phrase "It is too much emotional labor to educate you" . I want to go out and do anti-racist work, but since it is "unpaid labor" I guess I don't really have to.

[@atwarwithdust]

56:11 “Consider gender relations. In developed capitalist countries, women have become more independent from men and more equal, both legally and economically, than ever before. Nevertheless, they still are subject to sexual predation - as Trump has helped to highlight - and they still do the bulk of caring labor, whether for free or for low pay. Now low-paid care-work fits the account of exploitation found in Marx’s ‘Capital’, but the work they do for free does not. Feminists have often criticized Marx on this point, but since ‘Capital’ is intended to elucidate what makes the capitalist system tick, so to speak, unpaid labor is irrelevant; so this criticism is not to the point, in my opinion. Marxist and socialist feminists have, however, developed an enriched account of social reproduction which tries to supplement the account given in ‘Capital’, showing the importance of this labor, both in human terms and for capitalism. The extraordinary improvement of gender relations within capitalism raises the question of whether women and men could ever be totally equal within a capitalist society. Liberals think so. And some Marxists seem to imply it by their contention that, unlike class oppression, sex and race oppression are not essential to capitalism. But, while they’re not *logically* essential - that is, we can imagine a gender-, race-neutral version of capitalism, it does not follow that they’re incidental. Indeed, as Marxist feminists including myself have argued, they’re very likely *historically* or *pragmatically* necessary. Consider what women have and have not achieved. What they’ve achieved are their basic democratic rights, which do not threaten profits. But care-work in the US is still largely a private responsibility, because supporting care-work as the public good it certainly is would seriously cut into profits. In other countries with more generous social supports, the advent of global neoliberalism has meant drastic cutbacks. The nature of capitalism has thus put constraints on gender and racial equality. Today, while individual women and minorities have moved to the very top ranks of society, class differences among women and among blacks have actually increased. Any movements that could reduce sex and race oppression must be based on working class struggles, integrating other forms of oppression. Thus the counterposition of class and so-called ‘identity politics’ is misleading - indeed, counterproductive.” - Nancy Holmstrom, kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5bCno15it-Sb68/?t=45m47s, 2017