As I said in my response to aworldtowin, Sakai’s thesis is not that white people can’t be radicalized, his thesis is that it’s extremely difficult. White people are proletarians, and are still oppressed, and in some instances can be aware of that oppression. The issue is in deconstructing the culture of hegemony enabling their tendency toward Labor Aristocracy.
Sakai promotes the idea of totally destroying the concept of the United States, because it can only exist as a Settler Colonial project. A lot of white socialists see this proposition as white erasure which is really telling on themselves if they see the concept of America as equivalent to white people. Emilien Petit would be proud if they were French instead of Anglos.
The task of laying out what should replace the US is not a the responsibility of Sakai though, he doesn’t aim to be Lenin. That task should be up to the communist parties instead. His only suggestion for said parties is that, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, they should not make any attempts to rehabilitate America or Americanism; because while the initial boost in numbers is attractive, that liberalism and patriotism will eventually cause the party to betray its own values and be consumed by the reactionary tendencies of the majority of its members. Instead there has to be a policy of educating members away from Americanism and white supremacy as quickly as possible such that they don’t become weak links who won’t see the movement through to the end. There are numerous examples in the book showing that this eventuality isn’t just possible but is likely. Americanism is just foundationally too destructive to be useful. It’s like the Demon Core that gives everyone who touches it radiation poisoning.
I do appreciate the shoutout to Silvia Federici though, which is why I think any good movement should have an intersectional character to it, but it doesn’t feel like a lot of lemmygrad people are quite ready to talk about that yet. We don’t seem to have many women in the userbase (and tbh, site culture needs a little bit of TLC to even be attractive to women). In a similar vein to the race issue, men aren’t inherently reactionary, but educating men out of reactionary and sexist tendencies is a lot harder and it would help if men recognized this. Even well-established parties and orgs have issues with sexual abuse and patriarchal posturing among their male members (some of whom turn out to be Feds). Addressing that isn’t impossible, but it does mean that women and queer people, and especially victims of sexual assault in these orgs need to be taken more seriously in their criticisms and suggestions.
As I said in my response to aworldtowin, Sakai’s thesis is not that white people can’t be radicalized, his thesis is that it’s extremely difficult. White people are proletarians, and are still oppressed, and in some instances can be aware of that oppression.
I’m sorry, you are not describing Sakai’s points. I agree with your points, but these are not Sakai’s. Even in the title Sakai makes it very clear: Settlers: the mythology of the white proletariat
I do appreciate the shoutout to Silvia Federici though, which is why I think any good movement should have an intersectional character to it, but it doesn’t feel like a lot of lemmygrad people are quite ready to talk about that yet.
Oh please, comrade. If you think Lemmygrad people are not ready, it’s just more reason for you to talk about it. I agree with your views wholeheartedly. For years I was a male chauvinist myself, and there’s absolute need for revolutionaries to fight the male patriarchal subjectivity, just as much as the white supremacist subjectivity.
I agree with the propositions of your comment, comrade, but I feel like we’ve read two different books.
I think we might have interpreted it differently for sort of personal reasons. I’m not a particularly good person, I don’t think, so I’m used to being told to check myself. I don’t think that’s an indictment that I’m incapable of change, just that I’ve done stuff that I need to learn from. If I refused to recognize those things, however, it would make me pretty unappealing to be around. The list of things white socialists have done in the US seems pretty damning, but not impossible to recover from. And imo Settlers is the only marxist book really asking white socialists to check themselves without going at it from an anarchist or liberal perspective.
And imo Settlers is the only marxist book really asking white socialists to check themselves without going at it from an anarchist or liberal perspective.
As I said in my response to aworldtowin, Sakai’s thesis is not that white people can’t be radicalized, his thesis is that it’s extremely difficult. White people are proletarians, and are still oppressed, and in some instances can be aware of that oppression. The issue is in deconstructing the culture of hegemony enabling their tendency toward Labor Aristocracy.
Sakai promotes the idea of totally destroying the concept of the United States, because it can only exist as a Settler Colonial project. A lot of white socialists see this proposition as white erasure which is really telling on themselves if they see the concept of America as equivalent to white people. Emilien Petit would be proud if they were French instead of Anglos.
The task of laying out what should replace the US is not a the responsibility of Sakai though, he doesn’t aim to be Lenin. That task should be up to the communist parties instead. His only suggestion for said parties is that, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, they should not make any attempts to rehabilitate America or Americanism; because while the initial boost in numbers is attractive, that liberalism and patriotism will eventually cause the party to betray its own values and be consumed by the reactionary tendencies of the majority of its members. Instead there has to be a policy of educating members away from Americanism and white supremacy as quickly as possible such that they don’t become weak links who won’t see the movement through to the end. There are numerous examples in the book showing that this eventuality isn’t just possible but is likely. Americanism is just foundationally too destructive to be useful. It’s like the Demon Core that gives everyone who touches it radiation poisoning.
I do appreciate the shoutout to Silvia Federici though, which is why I think any good movement should have an intersectional character to it, but it doesn’t feel like a lot of lemmygrad people are quite ready to talk about that yet. We don’t seem to have many women in the userbase (and tbh, site culture needs a little bit of TLC to even be attractive to women). In a similar vein to the race issue, men aren’t inherently reactionary, but educating men out of reactionary and sexist tendencies is a lot harder and it would help if men recognized this. Even well-established parties and orgs have issues with sexual abuse and patriarchal posturing among their male members (some of whom turn out to be Feds). Addressing that isn’t impossible, but it does mean that women and queer people, and especially victims of sexual assault in these orgs need to be taken more seriously in their criticisms and suggestions.
I’m sorry, you are not describing Sakai’s points. I agree with your points, but these are not Sakai’s. Even in the title Sakai makes it very clear: Settlers: the mythology of the white proletariat
Oh please, comrade. If you think Lemmygrad people are not ready, it’s just more reason for you to talk about it. I agree with your views wholeheartedly. For years I was a male chauvinist myself, and there’s absolute need for revolutionaries to fight the male patriarchal subjectivity, just as much as the white supremacist subjectivity.
I agree with the propositions of your comment, comrade, but I feel like we’ve read two different books.
I think we might have interpreted it differently for sort of personal reasons. I’m not a particularly good person, I don’t think, so I’m used to being told to check myself. I don’t think that’s an indictment that I’m incapable of change, just that I’ve done stuff that I need to learn from. If I refused to recognize those things, however, it would make me pretty unappealing to be around. The list of things white socialists have done in the US seems pretty damning, but not impossible to recover from. And imo Settlers is the only marxist book really asking white socialists to check themselves without going at it from an anarchist or liberal perspective.
True, at least as far as I know of