Some people find me kind of theatrically pessimistic or doomsaying. (No clue how they got that idea.) I do have a lot of optimistic feelings about the future, but in politics in particular I am constantly confronted with a basic problem: change in the favor of the poor, the powerless, and the marginalized requires solidarity across difference, but the political ideologies associated with pursuing that change have become obsessed with emphasizing the differences instead of the solidarity. All the left has is people power. But that can’t work if you insist some people are more important than others.
Hi Freddie. You may take this for granted, but this short paragraph is the best, simplest, clearest, distillation of this moment: "Change in the favor of the poor, the powerless, and the marginalized requires solidarity across difference, but the political ideologies associated with pursuing that change have become obsessed with emphasizing the differences instead of the solidarity. All the left has is people power. But that can’t work if you insist some people are more important than others." I know over-the-top praise can be uncomfortable, but I read pretty much everything, and at this point, if I could get everyone on the left (and the "left") to read one person, it would be you. Thank you.
This is what makes me insane about intersectionality. If we treat ourselves as the unique intersection of all our various identities, we become so radically individual that solidarity is impossible. Intersectionality is, in the final judgment, poisonous to the communitarianism that leftist thought requires.
(I'm not exactly a leftist myself, rather a hard-communitarian social democrat, but here our interests are aligned, I think.)
I hate this shit too, the carving of people into finer and finer groups and finding new ways to mob and shame. The more I look into it, the more the behavior reminds me of toxic nerd communities (video games, Star Wars, Marvel, etc.). It's all posturing and jockeying for status.
It's not like the Left I know. It's some hideous mutant offspring that escaped a lab.
Johnson's case is probably the worst example of trans activists' determination to transform many historical figures into a transperson based entirely on classic sexist & homophobic criteria. Johnson was NOT trans. And yes, Freddie's entirely correct that it doesn't matter who threw the first brick at Stonewall. But it does matter that trans activists insist on erasing gays & lesbians from their own civil and human rights movement while crediting all its achievements onto trans people -- and especially labeling GAY people who were at the forefront of the movement as "trans."
THANK YOU. The brick discourse gets worse every pride month, and it's ridiculous.
The line I see is something like, "Remember, we owe EVERYTHING to the black trans woman who threw the first brick at Stonewall. We would not have gay rights without Marsha P Johnson. So we all need to honor black trans women / care about their specific concerns."
It drives me crazy because 1) Marsha specifically said she wasn't there when it started. I don't care either, but when everyone is demanding we "center black trans women" it's just more grating when they keep yelling about something that literally didn't happen.
2) Stonewall was important! But the gay community was organizing before Stonewall, and I'm pretty sure a counterfactual universe where Stonewall didn't happen wouldn't be one where gay activists accomplished nothing for the next 60 years.
3) The specific concerns of black trans women deserve attention because black trans women are human beings who deserve rights, acceptance, equality – everything. It’s insulting to say they deserve these things because one person threw a brick. It’s even worse when the person didn’t really throw the brick, so the argument immediately collapses if you bother to investigate.
And as this article points out beautifully, the movement should be about us coming together for freedom. Instead, it’s the opposite. The queer community spends June fighting over everything. Kink at pride, cops at pride, flags with problematic origins, which identities are “valid.” And most importantly, who is more oppressed.
We spend all of June fighting over who has it worse. Bi women with husbands? (They don’t get enough acknowledgement of their queerness) Trans women? (Oppressed by cis queers) Lesbians? (Why isn’t our special flag included?) We just bicker all month. I can’t wait for June to end.
As a member of the LGBT community for decades, I can attest that this question of "who threw the first brick" was never a matter of concern until the last couple of years. If your opinion isn't "it was a Black trans woman" you'll be labeled as a Bad Gay - i.e. a rich white cis man or a TERF. It makes me nervous to see the left revising history to fit current needs. The truth is that it was a bunch of white gay men and drag queens of many colors, which means there was something like solidarity! But solidarity isn't moving the Twitter needle as much as starting in-group fights.
I hate seeing the left become a caricature of itself, but unfortunately groups splintering and purging members does happen. Meanwhile, while we argue over who gets excommunicated, the right-wing is busy using their power to enact anti-trans legislation, while DOJ argues for an expansion of a religious right to discriminate.
I think some people will be afraid to comment on this post if they aren't LGBT, but it's okay for people to have an opinion, and it's okay to ask questions! Ultimately what Freddie is saying applies to just about every leftist group - just yesterday there were reports on the Sunrise movement being beset by "internal divisions". Wow, a leftist group splintering, who could've predicted.
This is the crispest, shortest distillation of the problem with identity politics I've ever seen. Thanks for helping me understand something that's been bothering me for a long time but that I couldn't quite articulate.
Eugene Debs said, "While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Nowadays I suspect most leftists would be uncomfortable with that formulation of solidarity, since he is claiming oppressions that aren't his own. (Of course he did in fact go to prison, but since his experience as an educated white man in prison would have been different than an impoverished person of color, does it really count?)
I don't think your writing is pessimistic or doom saying. The best way I've found to describe it is as infused with a sort of realistic melancholy I quite enjoy. A pretentious label I know, but I think it fits you well and is a rare style in todays discourse.
To some extent, all politics is identity politics. The whole point of classic socialist organizing was trying to activate people's identity as 'worker' or 'farmer' as someone in conflict with 'capital' and management. I don't think you can just brush that off.
People have a complex set of identities that gets even more complex in the modern age and it makes just about any political movement more difficult, one way or the other.
I think the toughest thing about political organizing from the left perspective is that you have to be ready to put in time and energy into doing said organization, but then, yeah, you have to settle in to be a small part of a much greater whole. It's tough, psychologically. It'd be a lot easier if it was a group of part-time activists full-time other things so being that small part of a greater whole isn't so psychologically difficult, but then I don't know if there's a lot of room for that in 2021. With an increased level of political consciousness(and strength of political identity), people like that tend to get left behind.
It's because whatever the supposed "left" is, exists as a subculture masquerading as a political movement. You can consider the proliferation of identities and orientations like different craft brews (an example you have used) or indie bands. The main purpose is to create a language and level of complexity capable of separating the initiated from the general public the same way going to a punk show and saying your favorite band is Blink-182 marks you instantly and obviously as a poser. This serves the very important role of preserving the clout and cultural capital of the people most involved.
The political portion is a very distant 2nd, when it factors in at all. Once you realize you're not even really doing politics it makes way more sense.
Hyper individualism is silly and patently illogical with lots of evidence (simple common sense included) pointing to an obvious conclusion - we are not important. Sorry, boohoo, you came in 8th place, better luck next time, but here is a ribbon, hope that makes you feel better, sorry for your lived experience. We have taught a generation to wallow in self-indulgent claptrap.
From DeGraffenreid v General Motors, 708 F2d 475 (9th Cir 1983):
"The legislative history surrounding Title VII does not indicate that the goal of the statute was to create a new classification of 'black women' who would have greater standing than, for example, a black male. The prospect of the creation of new classes of protected minorities, governed only by the mathematical principles of permutation and combination, clearly raises the prospect of opening the hackneyed Pandora's box."
That's an early statement of the entire problem, isn't it?
On the other hand (and I have many, many hands) there are forms of discrimination that affect, e.g., black women differently from black men or white women. There's truth in that. But then when the argument is extended over the ensuing 40 years, we each wind up spinning in our own little solipsistic universes. I am very sympathetic to Freddie's call for unity in the struggle for justice, but I also see the fear of the groups that might get left out. I hate reality, it's so complicated.
This is why Adam Curtis's films strike such a cord. It's exactly the thesis of all his films: the left has lost the will to sacrifice individually for the greater good.
I think the left increasingly feels like pushing its own narratives and constructing its own heroic figures is important enough that it's okay to be a little loose with the details. This Marsha P. Johnson episode is a skirmish in a larger war - the 1619 project is a slightly bigger battle.
Ultimately this is not much different from conservatives fighting to keep the Columbus and Thomas Jefferson stories pure. The conservatives never cared about the details, if you're defending tradition it doesn't matter if George Washington really chopped down the apple tree - the veracity is almost besides the point. I think there are parallels with the new left - if you're a true ally, the veracity of the Marsha P. Johnson story becomes besides the point. Why would you try to disrupt a useful narrative? This cynicism feels new to me. But it's not totally indefensible as a strategy.
The socialist left also has its own myths and heroic figures, so I don't think you can chalk this entirely to identity politics or individualism - people wear Che shirts, not 'all of the Cubans' shirts.
Hi Freddie. You may take this for granted, but this short paragraph is the best, simplest, clearest, distillation of this moment: "Change in the favor of the poor, the powerless, and the marginalized requires solidarity across difference, but the political ideologies associated with pursuing that change have become obsessed with emphasizing the differences instead of the solidarity. All the left has is people power. But that can’t work if you insist some people are more important than others." I know over-the-top praise can be uncomfortable, but I read pretty much everything, and at this point, if I could get everyone on the left (and the "left") to read one person, it would be you. Thank you.
There is a word that encompasses all gender and sexual minorities: queer. Pretty much anyone 40 or under is fine with it, 40 or over isn't.
This is what makes me insane about intersectionality. If we treat ourselves as the unique intersection of all our various identities, we become so radically individual that solidarity is impossible. Intersectionality is, in the final judgment, poisonous to the communitarianism that leftist thought requires.
(I'm not exactly a leftist myself, rather a hard-communitarian social democrat, but here our interests are aligned, I think.)
I hate this shit too, the carving of people into finer and finer groups and finding new ways to mob and shame. The more I look into it, the more the behavior reminds me of toxic nerd communities (video games, Star Wars, Marvel, etc.). It's all posturing and jockeying for status.
It's not like the Left I know. It's some hideous mutant offspring that escaped a lab.
Just one point about Marsha Johnson: Johnson himself never viewed himself as trans. He called himself a "queer boy" and a "transvestite." Here's a video of him saying that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdUEFtPFJLo&list=FLf009cF_LDNLEYM1_exA8uQ&index=2
Johnson's case is probably the worst example of trans activists' determination to transform many historical figures into a transperson based entirely on classic sexist & homophobic criteria. Johnson was NOT trans. And yes, Freddie's entirely correct that it doesn't matter who threw the first brick at Stonewall. But it does matter that trans activists insist on erasing gays & lesbians from their own civil and human rights movement while crediting all its achievements onto trans people -- and especially labeling GAY people who were at the forefront of the movement as "trans."
THANK YOU. The brick discourse gets worse every pride month, and it's ridiculous.
The line I see is something like, "Remember, we owe EVERYTHING to the black trans woman who threw the first brick at Stonewall. We would not have gay rights without Marsha P Johnson. So we all need to honor black trans women / care about their specific concerns."
It drives me crazy because 1) Marsha specifically said she wasn't there when it started. I don't care either, but when everyone is demanding we "center black trans women" it's just more grating when they keep yelling about something that literally didn't happen.
2) Stonewall was important! But the gay community was organizing before Stonewall, and I'm pretty sure a counterfactual universe where Stonewall didn't happen wouldn't be one where gay activists accomplished nothing for the next 60 years.
3) The specific concerns of black trans women deserve attention because black trans women are human beings who deserve rights, acceptance, equality – everything. It’s insulting to say they deserve these things because one person threw a brick. It’s even worse when the person didn’t really throw the brick, so the argument immediately collapses if you bother to investigate.
And as this article points out beautifully, the movement should be about us coming together for freedom. Instead, it’s the opposite. The queer community spends June fighting over everything. Kink at pride, cops at pride, flags with problematic origins, which identities are “valid.” And most importantly, who is more oppressed.
We spend all of June fighting over who has it worse. Bi women with husbands? (They don’t get enough acknowledgement of their queerness) Trans women? (Oppressed by cis queers) Lesbians? (Why isn’t our special flag included?) We just bicker all month. I can’t wait for June to end.
As a member of the LGBT community for decades, I can attest that this question of "who threw the first brick" was never a matter of concern until the last couple of years. If your opinion isn't "it was a Black trans woman" you'll be labeled as a Bad Gay - i.e. a rich white cis man or a TERF. It makes me nervous to see the left revising history to fit current needs. The truth is that it was a bunch of white gay men and drag queens of many colors, which means there was something like solidarity! But solidarity isn't moving the Twitter needle as much as starting in-group fights.
I hate seeing the left become a caricature of itself, but unfortunately groups splintering and purging members does happen. Meanwhile, while we argue over who gets excommunicated, the right-wing is busy using their power to enact anti-trans legislation, while DOJ argues for an expansion of a religious right to discriminate.
I think some people will be afraid to comment on this post if they aren't LGBT, but it's okay for people to have an opinion, and it's okay to ask questions! Ultimately what Freddie is saying applies to just about every leftist group - just yesterday there were reports on the Sunrise movement being beset by "internal divisions". Wow, a leftist group splintering, who could've predicted.
This is the crispest, shortest distillation of the problem with identity politics I've ever seen. Thanks for helping me understand something that's been bothering me for a long time but that I couldn't quite articulate.
Eugene Debs said, "While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Nowadays I suspect most leftists would be uncomfortable with that formulation of solidarity, since he is claiming oppressions that aren't his own. (Of course he did in fact go to prison, but since his experience as an educated white man in prison would have been different than an impoverished person of color, does it really count?)
I don't think your writing is pessimistic or doom saying. The best way I've found to describe it is as infused with a sort of realistic melancholy I quite enjoy. A pretentious label I know, but I think it fits you well and is a rare style in todays discourse.
To some extent, all politics is identity politics. The whole point of classic socialist organizing was trying to activate people's identity as 'worker' or 'farmer' as someone in conflict with 'capital' and management. I don't think you can just brush that off.
People have a complex set of identities that gets even more complex in the modern age and it makes just about any political movement more difficult, one way or the other.
I think the toughest thing about political organizing from the left perspective is that you have to be ready to put in time and energy into doing said organization, but then, yeah, you have to settle in to be a small part of a much greater whole. It's tough, psychologically. It'd be a lot easier if it was a group of part-time activists full-time other things so being that small part of a greater whole isn't so psychologically difficult, but then I don't know if there's a lot of room for that in 2021. With an increased level of political consciousness(and strength of political identity), people like that tend to get left behind.
It's because whatever the supposed "left" is, exists as a subculture masquerading as a political movement. You can consider the proliferation of identities and orientations like different craft brews (an example you have used) or indie bands. The main purpose is to create a language and level of complexity capable of separating the initiated from the general public the same way going to a punk show and saying your favorite band is Blink-182 marks you instantly and obviously as a poser. This serves the very important role of preserving the clout and cultural capital of the people most involved.
The political portion is a very distant 2nd, when it factors in at all. Once you realize you're not even really doing politics it makes way more sense.
Hyper individualism is silly and patently illogical with lots of evidence (simple common sense included) pointing to an obvious conclusion - we are not important. Sorry, boohoo, you came in 8th place, better luck next time, but here is a ribbon, hope that makes you feel better, sorry for your lived experience. We have taught a generation to wallow in self-indulgent claptrap.
From DeGraffenreid v General Motors, 708 F2d 475 (9th Cir 1983):
"The legislative history surrounding Title VII does not indicate that the goal of the statute was to create a new classification of 'black women' who would have greater standing than, for example, a black male. The prospect of the creation of new classes of protected minorities, governed only by the mathematical principles of permutation and combination, clearly raises the prospect of opening the hackneyed Pandora's box."
That's an early statement of the entire problem, isn't it?
On the other hand (and I have many, many hands) there are forms of discrimination that affect, e.g., black women differently from black men or white women. There's truth in that. But then when the argument is extended over the ensuing 40 years, we each wind up spinning in our own little solipsistic universes. I am very sympathetic to Freddie's call for unity in the struggle for justice, but I also see the fear of the groups that might get left out. I hate reality, it's so complicated.
This is why Adam Curtis's films strike such a cord. It's exactly the thesis of all his films: the left has lost the will to sacrifice individually for the greater good.
I think the left increasingly feels like pushing its own narratives and constructing its own heroic figures is important enough that it's okay to be a little loose with the details. This Marsha P. Johnson episode is a skirmish in a larger war - the 1619 project is a slightly bigger battle.
Ultimately this is not much different from conservatives fighting to keep the Columbus and Thomas Jefferson stories pure. The conservatives never cared about the details, if you're defending tradition it doesn't matter if George Washington really chopped down the apple tree - the veracity is almost besides the point. I think there are parallels with the new left - if you're a true ally, the veracity of the Marsha P. Johnson story becomes besides the point. Why would you try to disrupt a useful narrative? This cynicism feels new to me. But it's not totally indefensible as a strategy.
The socialist left also has its own myths and heroic figures, so I don't think you can chalk this entirely to identity politics or individualism - people wear Che shirts, not 'all of the Cubans' shirts.