foamflower

Disclaimer: EXTREMELY rough draft

Disclaimer: this is entirely from personal experience, mostly on Facebook and Twitter. I think the left does a ton of important work, mostly by existing and pushing leftwards. I think this works to fight back against general evil bullshit and right-wing pushing by corporate interests.

Mixed Messaging on Racism

• “Racist” is used as a perjorative to mark enemies of the left. When someone is being utterly condemned, it is often the word “racist” that is used to drive that point home.

SIMULTANEOUSLY

• The left acknowledges that everyone is racist, in that they implicitly agree to racist systems.

To someone on the left, this obviously involves two different meanings of the word “racist”. But can you imagine untangling this as someone who doesn't have constant exposure to both meanings? There are only a few interpretations that someone could reasonably make a priori:

1. The left hates everyone, including themselves, and considers nobody redeemable or good. The face value interpretation of “anti-racists” backs this up. Everyone and everything is cancelled.

2. There's another one but I forget it

Self-isolation

• Lots of leftists abandon anyone who disagrees with them. The most important activism you can do isn't self-flagellation. And I think “education” is a bad way of thinking about it. I'd frankly like to call it mutual aid, in the spirit of leftism: The act of talking to people you disagree with to arrive together at the truth. The goal and hope is that the truth is one espoused by leftist ideology, but one has to be open to that not being the case.

Purity-seeking

• This is where I'm gonna put all the normal complaints: weaponization if identity politics, catering to crazies (people with outrageous demands, asking people to dramatically change their life for seemingly tiny reasons, etc). I think the reason this happens is because it's hard to tell what is reasonable.

• There's a level of catering to marginalized identities that makes a lot of sense to me. And it's a pretty damn high level. I think an interesting thought experiment is what would white people feel comfortable with doing, and how would they feel comfortable being acting when they become a minority. What would they be okay with putting up with? What wouldn't they? Would they have a problem with their culture being appropriated? (lol what culture etc). What about being unfairly targeted by police?

Lack of introspection w/r/t policy

• Lots of leftist policies fail. I don't think this is a death sentence for leftism, I think it's something that can be actively improved. But it takes acknowledgement. There's not a ton of work done at a systems level to understand why and to make it better. At least not work that's being done in the public sphere, or work that enters public discourse.

Getting off-topic

• It's hard to stay on-topic! The right is certainly equally bad, if not worse at it. But by debating specific points (“there was an attempt by the wealthy to divide working-class white and black indentured servants and slaves”) you can arrive at factual conclusions because the questions are answerable. Here's a list of debate topics you can bring up with people, for which there are solid answers to:

• “There was an attempt by the wealthy to divide working-class white and black indentured servants and slaves” (true)

• “Confederate statues were not built to perpetuate race separatism” (false)

• “Confederate statues were seen as good by contemporary CSA figures” (false)

By isolating the conversation to a single issue, you can approach truth, which is, in all likelihood, on your side. And even when it isn't, it's a chance to push for improvement in your side.