[GPSCC-chat] My Post on GreenChange.org About "Identity Politics"

[alexcathy at aol.com]

 Dear Green Friends,  

When Deacon Alexander declared his candidacy for the Green Party nomination for governor of California, the blind, unreasoning, knee-jerk reaction of certain individuals was to "racialize" the election.  They have this blind, unreasoning, knee-jerk reaction, not because they are bad people and bad Greens, but because this is the way Republicans and Democrats have taught them to "do politics" in America all their lives.  

I said nothing about it at the time, because I did not want to make things worse by appearing to take sides in a fake conflict between Deacon and Laura.  

Well, now just as our primary election has ended, I read something on the New York Times that convinced me that I should speak my mind about certain unfortunate syndrome I have seen taking hold of my Green Party.  Accordingly, I have posted the blog entry below to GreenChange.org hoping it will be read my mostly Green Party activists and any damage from "airing our dirty laundry" in public will be minimized.  If you want to comment, then please log into GreenChange.org and leave a comment.  

Alex Walker
Los Angeles Greens 

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http://network.greenchange.org/news/18193-new-york-burns-while-gpbc-fiddles

Posted on GreenChange.org, June 10, 2010
New York Burns While GPBC Fiddles 
by Alex Walker

The New York Times reports New York State on the brink of chaos because Democrats and Republicans can't agree on budget. What are N.Y. Black Greens buzzing about? Silly "Identity Politics!" 


The New York Times reports that the Empire State of New York is on the brink of chaos because of the inability of Democratic Gov. David Paterson and the state legislature's Republican - Democratic members to agree on a state budget for the fiscal year that began April 1, 2010.  According to the NYT,  courts, parks, highway rest stops, and the processing of Medicaid benefits may stop because of this idiotic partisan impasse.

I am an African-American Green Party activist in Los Angeles.  I lived in New York from 1981 to 1993 when New York's "liberal" Governor Mario Cuomo was making great progressive speeches on television while quietly implementing "Reaganomics" at home. Anyone who has been paying attention ought to know that this tired old "Blacks versus Jews" thing has been a "trick bag" that the Establishment has been using since Norman Podhoretz and James Baldwin debated the question in the 1960s (see "Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White" by James Baldwin, New York Times Magazine, April 9, 1967). 

I subscribe to the list for the Green Party Black Caucus.  At a time like this, is it unreasonable to expect New York Greens would be shouting from the rooftops in Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Bronx about how our dysfunctional, money-driven, corporate Republicans and Democrats are literally killing people?    

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/nyregion/10shutdown.html 

Published by the New York Times, 06/09/2010
Parties Clash as Albany Edges Closer to Shutdown
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE


ALBANY -- State officials began preparing on Wednesday for what they said would be the first government shutdown in New York history as prospects for the passage of another emergency budget bill grew cloudy. 

Democratic and Republican legislative leaders engaged in an acrimonious public meeting in the Capitol with Gov. David A. Paterson. Republicans charged that they had been shut out of negotiations, and Democrats insisted that the Republicans shoulder some responsibility for averting a shutdown.

With no agreement yet reached on a budget for the fiscal year that began April 1, the state has been relying on a series of emergency bills to stay in operation. But Republicans have voted uniformly against the last three bills. After the last vote, two Democratic senators said they would oppose the next emergency bill, suggesting that Senate leaders might not be able to muster enough votes to pass it. 

. . .

Without the ability to pay workers or even guarantee their salaries in the future, officials said, they could be forced to close down state agencies immediately after the last emergency bill expires on Monday. Administration officials said they were still searching for a legal mechanism to continue financing essential public safety services, like prisons and the State Police.

But courtrooms, parks, highway rest stops and even the state terrorism hot line could all close. A shutdown could also affect some county and local workers, like those who administer Medicaid benefits. Though such workers are employed by the counties, they must gain access to state computer systems to process claims.

. . .



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So, pray tell, what has been the "buzz" on the Green Party Black Caucus e-list out of New York?  

For several days there has been a tremendous amount of "Bad Vibes" over a committee set up by the Bronx G.P. to investigate claims of Antisemitism by Cynthia McKinney based on a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center published last year.  

Here are excerpts from what I have read in my email: 


"During the conference, McKinney posed for pictures with attendees Michele Renouf, a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite, and David Pidcock, an antiSemitic and antiMasonic conspiracy theorist..." 

"You arrogant bastard.  That is the other reason why the Green Party is a joke... What in the hell do you have to be so damn superior about?  ... I ain't one of your Black tokens..."

"...Florence Gold and Bob Gumbs are doing a hatchet job on the Green Party, engaging in a smear campaign which serves the interests only of the Democratic Party machine..." 

"...I myself question staying in this party due to its ability to be manipulated by unapologetic racist Zionists like Mike Feinstein and Sanda Everette..." 


This is crazy.  

It's appropriate to consider the question of anti-Semitism (particularly since we know the charge will be used against us).  But this is a serious and sensitive question that ought to be dealt with seriously with sensitivity.  This latest example of gratuitously mean and divisive language is a poster boy for my argument that little "caucuses" of groups organized solely on the basis of "identity politics" are not good for progressive organizing in 2010.  It has been my experience in many years in civil rights and peace groups that, despite the best intentions of the best people who set these groups up, all caucuses based on "identity politics" degenerate in this way.

I have personally known and worked with Mike Feinstein of the California Green Party for several years.  Mike has his faults, but being a "racist Zionist" is not one of them.  This is the kind of creepy, over-the-top, irresponsible exaggeration that some people evidently think is the only way to express the intensity of their view of any given question.  Thus, when my friend Deacon Alexander, longtime activist in Watts here in L.A., announced his challenge of Laura Wells for the Green Party nomination for California governor, the blind, unreasoning, knee-jerk reaction of certain contributors to the GPBC list was to invent a "racist" conspiracy to shut up Brother Deacon.  

I said nothing at the time, because I was supporting Deacon and I did not want people to get the impression that I was criticizing him.  Now that the California primary is over, I will speak my mind by publicly and emphatically declaring such talk is nonsense.  I spoke with Greens all around California and I never heard anybody say anything bad about Deacon.  In fact, he impressed people everywhere he went.  The trouble was that California is a big state and Deacon couldn't be everywhere.  Laura Wells had an advantage, not because Sister Laura is "White," but because Laura had run very well before on the state ticket as our candidate for State Controller. In fact, I first met Laura Wells in 2002 the same time I first met Donna Warren, our Green Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor.  Donna would have enjoyed the same advantage had she chosen to reenter the fray this year.  Deacon is a good man who deserves better treatment than he got at the hands of his "supporters." For what it's worth, our contested election generated more than the usual interest for a Green Party primary and I think we'll have a stronger campaign in the Fall.     

Why do people say and write mean, hurtful, divisive things like "unapologetic racist Zionists like Mike Feinstein" and spread it all over the country on a national e-list?  They do it because it makes them "feel good" and makes them "feel important" as if this stuff is really some kind of "revolutionary" action.  And they don't care if it hurts this party because, deep down, they don't really believe the Green Party can be a "serious" political party.  It's like when people plan a rational protest of President Obama and Congress bailing out Wall Street banks and a few "nuts" show up with guns, Confederate flags, and racist signs depicting Obama as an ape.       

"Identity politics" degenerates in this way because the only reason for certain "Identity" groups to exist is the idea that the differences between "people like us" and "people like them" is so much greater and more important than the values we share and so much greater and more important than the differences we have with others who are "people like us."  Accordingly, we have to devote a lot of energy to endlessly underlining, circling, and highlighting those differences, otherwise our little group would have no reason to exist.  In the 1960s and 1970s the "liberal" Democrats encouraged and even subsidized this kind of politics as a kind of "ghetto" for the rising generation of radical activists in communities of color.  

This may have been expedient in 1965 or 1970, but, it's a lousy way to organize in 2010.  It is instructive that one of the main contributors to over-the-top words on the GPBC list has just recently demonstrated a a "soft spot" for Colin Powell. The idea is that Colin Powell and Condi Rice are "black."  They are "people like us."  Therefore, the similarity between Powell, Rice, and Alex Walker, is presumed to be greater and more important than my shared values with people like, say, Dennis Kucinich and Cindy Sheehan.  Therefore, I should give "Brother" Colin and "Sister" Condi a break while being eternally vigilant for telltale signs of "white privilege" emanating from "Mr." Kucinich and "Ms." Sheehan.  

I cannot help it if some people "feel" that way, but it is an emotion and a political ideology that I do not share.  I detest Colin Powell and Condi Rice and the fact that those two were "The First Black" war criminals to serve as Secretaries of State means nothing to me.  

We Greens say the Tutsi and the Hutu should set aside their differences in Rwanda.  We Greens say Israelis and Palestinians should set aside their differences in that unhappy, "unholy" land and that Israeli Jews should make a tremendous leap of faith in democracy and consider, not only a "2 State Solution" but even a "1 State Solution."  We Greens say citizens of the U.S.A. Should set aside their differences with Mexicans and Canadians.  We say "No Human Being is Illegal!"  

I agree.

That's why I joined the Green Party in the first place.  But who are we to say these things when we cannot even have a civil discussion among ourselves?

 


 


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