[lbo-talk] Occupy The Hood:Question of the day if capitalism was to end today would racism go way with it?

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Tue Dec 11 11:08:26 PST 2012


Occupy The Hood · 18,246 like this 2 hours ago ·

So we have been told a lot that if we need to focus on the fight against capitalism and not harp on racism because everyone is suffering ( I agree we have all been duped ) Question of the day if capitalism was to end today would racism go way with it?

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Angel M. Stout see @Image Blitz. Racists in denial.

2 hours ago via mobile · Like

Taffy Laffy This country was BOOMING-- uh colonialism is still a global order of white supremacy.

2 hours ago · Like · 2

Joseph Nicolas Zecher Theres truth to that, because thats how it works, they pit us all against ourselves so we cannot join up and go after them The only color thats important is Green..not black, white, yellow, brown....

2 hours ago · Unlike · 2

Taffy Laffy *imperialism

2 hours ago · Like

Kike Lillo Learned and inherited behavior is racism. Just like nationalism, patriotism, and other "isms". It's real but it's based on ignorance, on a complete lack of knowledge that requires us to see that there is really no difference between you and me. We all have the same wants and needs. We have the choice to indoctrinate or not our children and pass on our biased views of the world. Do we saddle them with the weight of what we experienced or do we try to bring about a truly new generation. That is where change really begins. Laws have never succeeded in forcing a man/woman to change where it really matters. In the center of their being.

2 hours ago · Like

Joseph Nicolas Zecher Racism will end when parents stop poisoning children with this crap.

2 hours ago · Like

Jay Cherise no and honestly the ones who are pushing for poc to only focus on capitalism instead of eradicating racism first will not give a fuck whether racism goes away with capitalism... their fight would've been won and where would it leave us? still subjected to racism... besides i dont feel its possible for capitalism to be completely done away with without doing away with racism FIRST.

2 hours ago · Like · 4

Christopher Ronan Conway @sulah that's very true. a lot of people got upset that France elected a "socialist" but he's still just as strictly against public wearing of headscarves and for French nationalism as any other party would be.

2 hours ago via mobile · Like · 2

Amy Hasbrouck I believe racism is a pillar of capitalism, because capitalism requires a class of impoverished, disenfranchised people to sustain itself, and racism is a convenient way to achieve that. As long as we challenge racism, we ARE fighting capitalism.

2 hours ago · Unlike · 4

Kevin Noble Williams Minus Here is a better question Occupy The Hood does racism ever need to "end"? Can it "end"? Would it matter if "we" had our own provisions and self sustaining communities? Would racism be a big deal if "we" had money?

2 hours ago · Edited · Like · 1

Happily Natural Day wasnt hitler socialist?

2 hours ago · Like

Adam Overlock It's not about racism or capitalism or any other kind of ism. It's about the haves vs the have nots, as it's always been. Racism and capitalism are just two of the tools that are used to oppress the masses.

2 hours ago via mobile · Like

Author Aquila M. Coulibaly Capitalism is the sister of racism ..you have to fight and destroy the Mother-OPPRESSION!!

2 hours ago · Like

Ashley Martian honestly, the thing i hear from most anti-capitalists who want their movement to come first (most of whom are straight, white cismen...) is that racism (and most other identity-based oppressions) will be easier to fix after "the revolution". this idea is bullshit. Oppressed peoples have been told to wait since we started fighting back. Stonewall would never have happened if we had just sat back and waited. The civil rights movement wouldn't have happened if we had sat back and waited. We can't fight capitalism without queer kids, women, and people of color, and unless the people who think they are explicitly anti-capitalist understand that, the white men will be fighting this battle all by themselves.

2 hours ago · Like · 4

Misti Johnson Craig Do the people telling you this not know that capitalism is used to perpetuate racism? Or that capitalism has bastardized feminism to promote the flow of money in to white households and create distruction in nonwhite families? (I know that statement will piss people off but it's true). As white women entered the workforce in mass numbers who was pushed out?

2 hours ago via mobile · Like

Charles Brown Capitalism will not end until white supremacy ( better to say white supremacy than racism) is substantially defeated . Only the 99% _united_ can end capitalism. The main division of the 99% is by white supremacy. So, the answer is : capitalism won't end today unless white supremacy is defeated substantially and simultaneously. And the other way around: white supremacy is a main bulwark of capitalism, and so capitalism engenders it, promotes it, perpetuates it. The 99% will end white supremacy in the course of ending capitalism.

about an hour ago · Like · 3

Kevin Noble Williams Minus So you guys are just a bunch of radical egalitarians? Smh..Is that what I am getting from this? As you post this stuff on a product that would not have been created if not for capitalism? I guess...

about an hour ago · Like

David Dang Hitler was a National Socialist and the first people he killed were the Communists. The Nazis outlawed strikes by employees and lockouts by employers, because these were regarded a threat to national unity. That is not socialism.

about an hour ago · Like · 1

Charles Brown Ask yourself the question which came 1st?//// Historically , they were born together as twins about 500 years ago, white supremacy and capitalism, mutually reinforcing, mutually causing.

about an hour ago · Like · 3

Charles Brown "The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre. It begins with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England’s Anti-Jacobin War, and is still going on in the opium wars against China, &c. "

about an hour ago · Like · 2

Kevin Noble Williams Minus Charles Brown, you really think "defeating" capitalism is the way forward? Do you really believe that or does it just sound good to you on facebook?

"white supremacy and capitalism, mutually reinforcing, mutually causing."

I am not trying to be insulting. I am serious. Do you really believe that?

about an hour ago · Edited · Like

Charles Brown This country was BOOMING financially in the 50's - and racism was/is alive and well. Racism isn't caused by bad financial times, it's caused by ignorance and fear, greed and hate. /////// Actually, the 1950's marked a major victory for racial unity and against white supremacy in the form of the Civil Rights movement, Civil Rights Act of 1954, _Brown vs Bd of Education_ ruling against white supremacist segregation. The economic Golden Age of the 50's coincided with a major defeat of white supremacy.

about an hour ago · Like · 1

Benjamin Ratliffe May I ask WHO it was who told you this? Honestly sounds a bit like when Fox News pundits say, "some people say..."

Ever since McCarthy and the Cold War, and especially after the collapse of the movements of the 60s and 70s, there has been a cottage industry of academic writing trying to prove that the Marxist critique of the relationship between Capitalism and oppression(s) downplays the important of the latter. Nothing could be further from the truth. Racism and Homophobia have developed along side, dialectically, with Capitalism -- we CAN'T fight one without fighting the other!

As Marx put it: "the revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew."

(I didn't list Sexism above because I think THAT developed in tandem with CLASS SOCIETY - i.e. much earlier than Capitalism. However, as Capitalism is a form of class society, and socialists see the potential of ending class society in the fight against the private exploitation of social labor - i.e. capitalism - sexist ideas and institutions can be smashed, alongside those of Racism and Homophobia, as people engaging in revolutionary struggle "rid themselves of all the muck of ages"

about an hour ago · Edited · Unlike · 2

Jennifer Ofosua Alsmot can't believe you guys are entertaining this discussion. Isn't the unemployment rate down to 7.7% now? Smh

about an hour ago · Like

Tabias Wilson I agree that interconnectedness is real, however, racism and white supremacy run rampant despite economic configurations.

about an hour ago · Like · 2

Charles Brown Charles Brown, you really think "defeating" capitalism is the way forward? Do you really believe that or does it just sound good to you on facebook? //// Definitely believe it. Surely , you don't think keeping capitalism is the way forward ? (smiles) Kevin Noble Williams Minus

about an hour ago · Like

Charles Brown Alsmot can't believe you guys are entertaining this discussion. Isn't the unemployment rate down to 7.7% now? ///// Historically, 7.7 % unemployment is a very high rate. Google "history of unemployment rate".

about an hour ago · Like

Daniel Werst First, I think only a working class that effectively fights racism can be capable of uniting and defeating capitalism.

Besides, if we think that ending capitalism means ending exploitation, meaning making sure that all the value produced by work goes to the worker and in an equitable way into public goods like schools, healthcare, etc, then socialism requires an end to discrimination. and not in any passive or wait and see kind of way like how we just hear lies about it now, but through struggle and self emancipation

about an hour ago · Unlike · 2

Lincoln Rose No racism wouldn't end. People are far too used to the structures being there, and I think would attempt to access the same structures even without capitalism until taught to access something else. Our culture would need to be treated like someone with a serious injury, & taught new ways to learn around the wounds.

about an hour ago · Like

David Dang Capitalism will still not be great if racism was abolished, I mean, would you prefer it if it was a poc paying below the minimum wage instead of a white person?

about an hour ago · Unlike · 1

Misti Johnson Craig I feel that the dicussion of racism is important to continue along side capitalism and apart from it. Dividing us racially is such a powerful tool for the 1% and their followers.

about an hour ago via mobile · Unlike · 1

David Dang Something to think about ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5fuhAYi1sI

Fred Hampton - Educational Program

Fred Hampton, the leader for the Chicago Chapter of the Black Panther Party, was

killed at 21 by the FBI's COINTEL-PRO and the Chicago Police Department on D...

about an hour ago · Edited · Like

James Sampson Dugan Racism is an intensified form of classism and both are the result of imperialistic capitalism. While racism was created through the values of capitalism it is so embedded in American culture that, no, it would not go away with the end of capitalism. And for all these white middle class liberals who say it affects everyone, true, but look at marginalized poverty, urban poverty, poverty from the result of discrimination and underrepresentation and realize that it hurts the bottom of the caste system much more.

about an hour ago via mobile · Like · 1

Lincoln Rose The idea of separating out movements is a specifically white (and I think middle class as well) idea. I'll never forget watching Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World. (I know, it's a messed up title, but I have a point.) The one thing that stuck with me was a gay man who said that being gay was not a "white thing", but that separating out gay rights from the rest of the human rights struggle is a white thing.

about an hour ago · Unlike · 1

Chris Fontaine just disappear ? lol like it's just a reflection of capitalism ? I'd say it has deff been a tool and probably one of the best tools they have to keep us separated. it plays on inner fears and inferiority complexes, just like "classism" sexism... pro...See More

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about an hour ago · Like

Eugene Onegin Racist ideology and institutions bolster the capitalist system in many ways. It only serves the fight against the one to combine it with the fight against the other.

59 minutes ago · Like

Sharky McJohnson All I hear is apologists. Apologists for white privilege or people of color feeling sorry for themselves. Most people can't help what body they are born into. I could. I chose, before I was born, through the power of my will, what body I was born into. You may have realized, the smarter ones among you, that I'm being sarcastic...

Well, there is racism. Yes, but that's not really something that INTELLIGENT people choose to exercise. Most intelligent people practice tolerance for religion and don't care what other people look like and are not apart of racism or bigotry.

The real color in the world is GREEN. You bitches can whine and cry and spout your little "White privilege WAAAA "

and quote your Marcus Garvey and other nonsense. But I don't give a fuck.

Stop making excuses. You're only setting a bad example for your own children. Hitler yeah he killed people. And he called himself a Socialist. He wasn't. He was a Fascist.

58 minutes ago · Edited · Like

Sharky McJohnson "THERE WILL ONLY BE PEACE WHEN ALL RACES WILL HAVE THEIR OWN COUNTRY! BLACK PEOPLE HAVE THEIR OWN COUNTRY, WHITE PEOPLE HAVE THEIR OWN COUNTRY, ASIAN PEOPLE HAVE THEIR OWN CONTRY!!!"

Yeah, we see how well Black people are getting along in Africa. They kill each other wholesale. And the Japanese massacred millions of people in WW2. Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, etc. And Russians and Germans and Polish people? They're all White. and They have a long history of invading one another's countries. Just because you're the same country doesn't mean you get along. Dipshit dumbass color-fucking idjits.

55 minutes ago · Like

Julie Levinsohn I don't see the two conversation as "separate," but I think the important thing is to realize how they go together, the roots and the evolution of the two. That's the way to start to break it all down, again, the way I see it. Slavery was about slave labor, economic exploitation for profit. It was important to make people understand that these people who they knew nothing about were a race that nobody should question the treatment of, they created a picture of this "strange" race of people that allowed people to believe treating them as less than human should not disturb them. Obviously, that is simplified, but it was involved in women not having any say in life and being chattel, told how to think, and the majority of the men being most interested in profit, the entire culture was submissive to White men already. That is a start, but the evolution, the way that has all evolved, the way that other groups have been put into the bottom spot and the illusion of some progress for Blacks has happened, the growing need to control that population, to keep things economically in the balance that the powers needed, the continual remaking of the "image," the flooding of Harlem with heroin to eventually lead to the "War on Drugs" the military requirements that led to the loss of huge numbers of young Black men's lives in Vietnam, urban renewal, the growth of suburbs, on and on. Racism, person to person, really is not the thing that is the problem in this country, if everybody doesn't like each other, doesn't want to live next door to each other, fine...as long as they all have the opportunity to make the choice. Separate but equal when imposed is like anything imposed on any people, inherently unequal to begin with. But if people have the opportunity to create really equal lives, how they live them is up to them. That's the thing, as I see it, racism, name calling, all of that...it's just the fuel that the powerful have gotten people to throw and keep the economic side going. Which is not to say that the propaganda machine has not done everything to support it, and not to ignore that huge numbers of people do really believe the vitriol they spew. Everybody is being duped and used and short changed. Who has had it worse, now, historically, it isn't that it doesn't matter or should be ignored or forgotten, but what it all was, who started it, why, how it made people rich...that is something that needs to be separated, understood, in a way that makes it obvious. JMO

51 minutes ago · Unlike · 1

Maggie Ahrens White Supremacy/Racism is it's own problem. Capitalism is its own problem.

They certainly seem to feed on each other, but frankly I don't see them as intertwined.

42 minutes ago · Like

Charles Brown Marx wrote in 1867 referring specifically to the United States slave system " Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin when in the black it is branded." So , Marxists have had the position that white workers cannot end their oppression by capitalism without ending special oppression of black workers from the beginning of Marxism, pretty much.

29 minutes ago · Like

Julie Levinsohn Just a question: was/is slavery about simply a hatred, White Supremacy, or about economics? if the roots of "racism" in this country are slavery, was it about money, greed and profit, or something else? Was "White Supremacy" originally about economics, was the rest originally a justification that became a sanctioned movement? What tactics were used to take a population that theoretically fought for their "freedom" from "religious oppression" to become at first complacient and then part of, systematic oppression? This is not a way to even begin to excuse or dismiss anything, but the point is that it is important to consider, understand, recognize, resist, the manipulation used to make people take fear of the unknown to hate and fear because it is something that has been used throughout our history over and over. Building on that in other ways is taking religious and ethnic differences and making populations the blame for economic hardship...all of it is related?

28 minutes ago · Like

Rossana Snežana Djurdjev You should never let racism go. I do think today's anti racists on the left need to reevaluate and maybe even do away with whiteness theories that came from academia in the 80's. Comrade Binh agrees some of these issues we are seeing today with whites talking about reverse racism, that this is where it's stemming from.The reasons to revamp theories are many, but most importantly that it is not proving effective to end racism... Or truely even understan racism towards blacks in the us in reality.

27 minutes ago via mobile · Like

Charles Brown "In the United States of North America, every independent movement of the workers was paralysed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded."

Vol. I, Ch. 10, Section 7, pg.329

26 minutes ago · Like

Brian Escobar Ending cap would certainly help. Cap may have started racism but its got a history and inertia just like cap. And cap may turn out to be more delicate. History doesn't unfold like laboratory experiments that control for variables.

26 minutes ago · Unlike · 1

Bobo Bose-Kolanu They're different, but interlocking, problems. Racism matters - why were there no (or very few) white slaves ("indentured servants")? It's not purely economic because there were a ton of white people in England, they could have just enslaved them instead of shipping people from Africa.

BUT, how does racism manifest itself today? Through the economy: increased cost of access to healthcare, education, healthy food, etc. Decreased class mobility. Harsher prison sentences and an unfair legal system designed to feed a prison-industrial complex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex), etc.

Those who are anti-racist must be anti-capitalist, because capitalism says people are objects to be exploited for profit. Anti-racism says people are not objects.

Prison–industrial complex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org

‎"Prison Industrial Complex" (PIC) is a term used to attribute the rapid expansi

on of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. The term is analogous to the military–industrial complex t...

22 minutes ago · Unlike · 1

Charles Brown Ending cap would certainly help. Cap may have started racism but its got a history and inertia just like cap. And cap may turn out to be more delicate. History doesn't unfold like laboratory experiments that control for variables.// I agree. The struggle against capitalism must have as a central feature the struggle against white supremacy (it is important to use "white supremacy" , and not "racism", as the latter gets used to refer to poc too much under Reaganism; ideas like "reverse racism" are very wrong). So, any major defeat of capitalism will have with it a major defeat of white supremacy; and vice versa. We can't end capitalism without a major defeat of white supremacy. Capitalism engenders white supremacy, because the leading capitalists know that their system depends upon perpetuating white supremacy. Black, Brown, Red, Yellow and White, unite and fight the bourgeoisie.

3 minutes ago · Like

Charles Brown The union was only won at Ford Motor when the white and black workers united in the union cause.



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