Who Benefits from Black Politics? - Adolph Reed & Touré Reed

[@jamesnewborn32]

I know I am in the minority here, but the Washington was a more nuanced figure than being "an accommodationist". He cultivated standards and gave George Washington Carver, one of the greatest scientists and inventors of all time, a venue to teach and do experiments. He had a mostly all Black faculty that most HBCUs at the time did not have. Ironically, because he quietly had qualms with Northern Liberals and the White Bourbon Class sold him, funded the NAACP; an organization that was partly formed to oppose him. He was complimented.

[@carlyellison8498]

Thank you for adding a perspective!

[@jamesnewborn32]

@@carlyellison8498 thanks. I took one of Dr. Reed's classes at the University of Illinois at Chicago years ago. He may remember me as James Newborn. He took me to task about Washington big time lol.

[@goofuslankius]

he starts by belittling the number of Black Americans…by comparing them to the number in another country. Failure out the gate.

[@DoberDudeProductions]

@@goofuslankius LOL - the point he made was pretty clear: the number of Black Americans is as LARGE as the Canadian population, and just as it's impossible to generalize all Canadians - the same can be said for the African American population.

[@beyondaboundary6034]

@@goofuslankius He wasn't belittling at all. He was emphasizing how many African Americans there are in the U.S. to underscore how absurd it is to treat them as a monolith. The claim that he is downplaying the number of African Americans by comparing them to an entire nation is ridiculous on its face. That is literally the opposite of what he is saying.

[@jeremyandrews3292]

Black politics are the worst, and probably had a lot to do with how I got turned off the left rather young. After the BLM stuff started getting intense in 2014, I started reading up about the Black Panthers and the Watts riots after talking to my Grandma who seemed completely unsurprised that the left would support this kind of thing, letting me know that my school had really cleaned things up by focusing on Martin Luther King, who was the most reasonable and unifying member of the civil rights movement, and that this was exactly what the... "other side" was afraid of back in the 1960s until MLK's movement offered everyone hope that we could all get along and inspired everyone with his self-sacrifice. This kind of activism makes white people who aren't insulated from the effects by living in a good neighborhood and/or a college education pushing sensitivity rather than self-preservation into their brains hard... distrustful of the left as a whole (perhaps unfairly since clearly the support for it is not uniform) and makes us feel like if there is ever a working class revolution, our heads will roll along with the capitalists because we are viewed as a privileged class that must be brought down to lift black people up. That is pretty much what the term "cultural Marxism" means when used by the right. It's a shorthand for the notion that the American left treats whites as the bourgeois, and the blacks as the proletariat without regard to wealth due to the concept of white privilege. It contains within itself the notion that the left has given up on class-based politics because they weren't effective during the Cold War, and instead has decided to vilify white people and exploit white guilt to win elections because that plays better in the US than a focus on class. It's interesting to see that at least a few serious Marxists that still think in terms of class agree that some portion of the left has abandoned its original mission by doing so, and may even be serving capitalist interests in the process...

[@metrobusman]

Whose work on Taft-Hartley was great? I thought I heard Samir Asante but googled many variations and got nothing. Anybody know the name?

[@ljordan222]

I have sent this before, but I think it deserves re-watching. From the southern-plantation: Little Rock, Arkansas 1945 ….. The desegregation/integration issue is a source of confusion for many people! What are the rights & privileges of U.S. citizenship? When my grandfather took me to Havana Cuba(another way of seeing society) in 1954(a magical year), I became quite interested in the idea of ending "legal segregation (the forced aggregation/restriction of African-Americans )" in the US, not "integration"! The question in my mind was, "what follows the removal of restrictions on African Americans by European Americans"? For those who don't know, I was born in "United Friends(an African American owned & operated) hospital", delivered by Dr. Oba B. White & assisted by nurse G. Jack Davis(who sent me a birthday card for the rest of her life), and I was the "poster baby" for Dr. White's 1946 calendar, with a caption: "My father says, let there be peace"! "United Friends Hospital" dissolved before the end of legal segregation, "ninth street" faded after that, ending with the urban-renewal scheme, making roadways(“expressway’s”) for the middle & upperclass to enter & exit the center-city(downtown)! As I grew-up, my segregated world was "the black(Negro) community"! much of the so-called "black community" was traditionally the restriction of african-americans to slums and their fringe areas. when african-americans became free to live where ever they could afford and/or want to, this myth of community cohesion was exposed. when the creole(middle-class) people became unbundled from the larger african-american reservation(the end of the “civil rights movement” & the beginning of the “black power movement”), the class aspect of social mobility became clear, they( “the kullud”) moved to middle-class areas like other middle-class people. Many middle class European-Americans moved to (“the outskirts of town”) surrounding areas of town, creating a new “metropolitan “ area. I write this to preface the presentation of the ideas about Booker T. Washington (BTW), William Monroe Trotter(WMT), T. Thomas Fortune(TTF), and W.E.B. DuBois(WEBD).

[@protitikhan3861]

I find this a bit of a circular argument. There is no unifying racial political movement amongst African Americans that exists, which is why we should reject this current unifying African American political movement because it's corrupted by class stratification. So is there or isn't there a unifying political movement within the African American population in the United States? I think you're answer is no, there is no "transhistorical African American movement " from the other video, soooooo, what gives? Slavery is the root of class stratification in America and inextricably linked with racial unity/disunity and a VERY political-racial movement in American history.

[@cameronwixcey9692]

When you say slavery is the cause of class stratification do you mean slavery or black transatlantic slavery? If the former I agree of the latter then please explain how my nation of Wales has class stratification but didn't have slave labour since the end of the middle ages.

[@xoferwalken]

Man there's a lot of nationalism in these comments.

[@Manormouse-04]

This channel regularly trashes black people, but has never done one show ( that I have seen) as critical of any other groups. No other race, or women, or sexual minority has been as maligned as they lay on black people. This stands in direct contradiction to their contention that racism is subordinate to class. If that were the case, they wouldn't lay all of their focus on black people. Class disparity is certainly an issue, but the focus of these people seems to be trashing black people.

[@TCt83067695]

That's a strange takeaway from this video

[@logicNreason2008]

Because racial discourse dominates the left space. The black politicial class are the current instruments being used by capital to keep talk of social justice away from class and on race. Given the history of racism, black elites have a sympathetic ear with pretty much everyone on the liberal-left spectrum yet they do not represent the interests of black people, just themselves and other elites. They wish to keep the discourse on race because it's beneficial to the black elite when the best thing that can happen to the black poor is a working class movement as the black poor are disproportionately working class and such a movement would create the needed numbers necessary for change. The problems facing the black poor are rooted in the capitalist economy first and foremost so that is where our attention should be.

[@mikew2610]

@jeff gray. Correct and that is the game being playing. It's the easiest way to gain followers talking about politics especially on youtube.

[@Manormouse-04]

@@logicNreason2008 say the exact same thing, but substitute black for Jewish (or trans, or women). I would wager that it would come across as antisemitic (misogynistic, transphobic) to a greater number of those viewing this. I'm not saying that class is not an issue, but the two are intertwined in this country. The class division has always had a baked-in component of racism. Every relevant black movement, from MLK to the Black Panther Party, has recognized the importance of the white lower class, to the uplifting of the black race (even Malcolm, after his pilgrimage to mecca). Those movements did not, however, ignore the obstacles specific to the black race, and to the black community.

[@logicNreason2008]

@@Manormouse-04 Norman Finkelstein quite literally makes this point which is how the liberal media is duped into supporting Israel slowly killing off the ethnic Palestinians because Israelis were victims of genocide themselves. Class formations and class interests emerge everywhere.

[@mu-torflood2015]

Essentially every video I see with the Reeds they fall prey to Class reductionism.

[@logicNreason2008]

Focusing on class will do far more for the black poor than focusing on race. The black elites however do not benefit from this arrangement and therefore have a vested interest in making sure the discourse stays about race. Charges of class reductionism only come from people who don't understand how class actually exists within the black community no different from any other, and these same elites capture all the racial justice benefits given to black people as they are the ones with power and control. A poor black person gets killed by the police and they get a job promotion. It's a good racket. Source: my family, and all the other elite black people I know who knowingly or unknowingly seek to maintain the status quo because we're all getting paid by it

[@mu-torflood2015]

@@logicNreason2008 I respectfully disagree.

[@logicNreason2008]

@@mu-torflood2015 disagree all you want, the facts are still the same. Refusing to acknowledge the complicity that the black elites have with the capitalist establishment is a grave mistake. Perhaps you just don't want to admit this reality? I'm sorry to tell you then

[@mu-torflood2015]

@@logicNreason2008 You seem to revel in putting words in my mouth. I am well aware of the class distinctions inter and intra-racially. My issue is again, is the Reed family's promotion of class reductionism. This holds especially true when you take into account that in most studies even if you control for class the outcomes are far worse for African people. Even if you got rid of Capitalism tomorrow. The world, due to the internalized racism and white supremacy ideology in many people (blacks included). They would in large part for an extended period of time (maybe indefinitely) practice racism. I am technically an anarchist (libertarian socialist). Even though that is my political categorization. I find the idea that if you get rid of capitalism and somehow you will magically get rid of Racism to be specious. Ma

[@logicNreason2008]

@@mu-torflood2015 classism is the regenerative force for racism as the artificial constraints created by capitalism necessitate someone needs to be getting screwed over at all times. Removing these false limitations in the economy through socialism won't automatically get rid of racism, but it is a necessary and crucial first step. Otherwise, you will be engaging in the wrong order of operations. "Class reductionism" builds the necessary coalitions required to addressing racial justice while at the same time disproportionately helping black people along the way. We cannot have it any other way as black rage and white guilt is not enough to get things done. This is why the Reeds are so ardently focused on class. It's the first step. Everyone must be doing okay in order to help specifically those who need the most. We got the civil rights movement at the height of American prosperity for this exact reason. The only way we can do something like that again is to build socialism where non-black people are benefiting as much or more than they did during the New Deal