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White Supremacy as the Form of North American Capitalism

When it comes to thinking about race and human rights, I’m obsessed. You’ve probably noticed that. But what might be less obvious (or, who knows, maybe more obvious) is that the pandemic has put my obsession on blast. Case in point, I was up at 5:30 today, eventually landed at my desk, and there I saw that a long-time human rights activist I know from Portland had asked me a question via direct messenger.

By then it was 3:30am in Portland, but when I answered, she was awake. Good to know there are other people as obsessed as me. And … Read more “White Supremacy as the Form of North American Capitalism”

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In Defense of Strategy and Against Property Damage…For Now

There’s a debate being waged over protest tactics, with the side in support of escalating tactics, or at least of not standing in the way of escalation, making their case along the lines of this article, In Defense of Property Damage, published in The Nation. The debate is largely academic in the sense that it addresses questions of theory and principle, not strategy and tactics in the context of specific struggles. What’s the difference and what does it mean in regard to how we answer the question, how far should we escalate tactics before we go too far?
Read more “In Defense of Strategy and Against Property Damage…For Now”
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Demonization and Authoritarianism

Demonization has been a central concern of mine as it is, I think, what the path to authoritarianism is paved with whether the demonizers are on the right or the left. It is one of the temptations that lead us down the slippery slope toward repression, state violence, and more. Why?

First, because demonization animates hyper-nationalism as nationalisms are fundamentally xenophobic, clarified in opposition to perceived enemies. And, very importantly, demonization also favors the right in the U.S., as far right movements lean into historical bigotries in order to build on the nationalist impulse and suggest that exclusion on the … Read more “Demonization and Authoritarianism”

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Culture versus Cancel Culture?

I’ve been asked a number of times now to write something about the cancel culture, that Harper’s letter (do I need to say more?), and what it all means by certain left wing(ish) publications. People ask me, is it McCarthyism? Or, are the people who are criticizing cancel culture just protecting an unregulated marketplace of ideas in which they’re the deciders when it comes to what can and can’t be said in certain venues by trying to cancel those who might cancel them?

I’ve remained silent basically because the debate seems to hinge on ideas that I think are far … Read more “Culture versus Cancel Culture?”

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Antisemitism Is Racism

I believe that the reason that so many progressives, including racial justice progressives, don’t understand the threat of antisemitism and even, really, that antisemitism is in fact racism!!! is that we understand racism wrong, or at least incompletely. Here’s what I mean.

U.S. residents, for the most part, think of racism in terms of effects – impoverishment, incarceration rates, etc., – and not in terms of root causes like economic exploitation and the gathering and consolidation of power. When considered in those terms, any group can be targeted if enough pressure is exerted by a competing and, especially, dominant group. … Read more “Antisemitism Is Racism”

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A White Gay Male Faction of White Nationalism is Rising and No, That’s Not a Joke

Donna Minkowitz writes in Slate about the emergence of a white gay male alt-right/white nationalist/neo-Nazi front using camp and sex to attract recruits. As counter-intuitive as the idea of a gay white nationalist movement may be, this development is very dangerous, making the article, IMO, a must-read for all who are fearful of white nationalism.

And, by the way, the article also includes a quote from me calling for us to use compassion as a wedge to separate the leadership of this new vector of racism and male supremacy from their potential base of support. That call, I’m guessing, requires … Read more “A White Gay Male Faction of White Nationalism is Rising and No, That’s Not a Joke”

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The Anti-Fascist Scouting Report: What The Left Can Learn From the Right

The leadership of the Christian Right has conjured what amounts to a resurrection of a wide array of threat vectors targeting LGBTQ people. They accomplished this by backing Trump’s candidacy and leading, by some accounts, more than 80% of white, self-identified evangelical voters to back him in the election. By allying themselves with Trump, evangelical right wing leaders have won a place at the table of the Trump regime and, seemingly overnight, gains of the LGBTQ movement we thought of as secure signposts of progressive change are in peril.

The cutting edge of Trump’s offensive against civil and human rights … Read more “The Anti-Fascist Scouting Report: What The Left Can Learn From the Right”

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Anti-Black Racism is Still the Fulcrum of White Supremacy

In a highly globalized society, with mass migration driving rapid change in the racial demography, both of the world and of the U.S., racial attacks and racism itself have grown much more complex, making last century understandings of the racial context less useful or even misleading. Whiteness, however, is still at the center of American culture, even as its power as a normative force is slowly eroding while it simultaneously becomes less invisible in the ways it exercises power.

Even with all of these changes, I continue to view anti-black racism as the nut of American racism. Poor black people … Read more “Anti-Black Racism is Still the Fulcrum of White Supremacy”

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Five Things LGBTQ People Can Teach Us About Survival in Trump’s America

Anti-democratic and authoritarian movements aren’t just about bigotry, but they most definitely drive down avenues of race and gender. This election showed us that with absolute sparkling clarity.

It’s time for all of us to realize that addressing sexism and racism is a we thing, not a me for you thing. And when it comes to that, LGBTQ people, especially LGBTQ people of color, have something to teach us.

Here are five of those lessons:

Number One: Visibility matters. Come out!

By answering the call to come out of the closet, LGBTQ people exploded homophobic norms. We staged a … Read more “Five Things LGBTQ People Can Teach Us About Survival in Trump’s America”

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The Next Wave: Getting Ready For Trump’s America

I’ve decided that for me, this is a time to leave nothing potentially useful unexposed, and to stop hiding behind liberalism. I mean, if this election showed us anything, liberalism is no longer the shield it used to be in the war against the political right wing. So, I figure, why bother lugging it around?

In that spirit, here’s something that started out as an email discussion with a few progressive grassroots political leaders in the Northwest. ​I wrote it in a few minutes completely on the fly before taking a couple of hours to clean it up and flesh … Read more “The Next Wave: Getting Ready For Trump’s America”