A book from this hyper liberal who once said that she was almost ‘A Communist’ . What a pathetic excuse for an activist. She has no idea of the real world s she’s never held a real job.
Yes. I am aware of that but I opted for murdered to make a political point about his death. One I think Sarkar might agree with though she doesn't say it.
Yeah I think people like Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Robin Kelley who have an understanding of racial capitalism are more useful here and offer more critical thought because they don’t negate the existence of anti-blackness or Zionism or white supremacy and their very clear function in capitalist systems. I liked the book Elite Capture too, which offers a more principled critique of identity politics than I think Sarkar does, at least in his writing on America. Genocide and chattel slavery have shaped this country.
Also, re comments—It’s exaggerated and kind of untrue that Irish people and Italian people were simply considered not-white in America. Sure they were seen as un-American, but they were considered more competent and valued than non-white people.
It’s just really over simplified history that idk minimizes the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and eugenics movement. The 1863 draft riots in NYC resulted in the lynchings of 11 Black people in NYC because Irish were mad they’d have to fight in civil war. Many more were killed by drowning. Businesses were destroyed. There was a whole campaign to hire immigrants brought by train from Alabama because they would do anything other than hire newly emancipated Black people in the state post reconstruction era.
Sure, race is a social construct, but we also need to be honest about how that construct has benefited certain people. Look at the treatment of immigrants arriving at Ellis vs Angel Island or The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. I think people get overly emotional when they hear these histories because they feel like these truths negate the struggles of their ancestors, and then lash out claiming talking honestly about history is “oppression Olympics.” Looking globally at caste and apartheid systems is useful too.
I’m a socialist. Working class solidarity is essential. Marxism is a useful framework, I root a lot of my thinking in Marx but coupled with Black and brown socialists who understand colonialism and racism, like Walter Rodney, Claudia Jones, Stokely Carmichael or Kwame Nkrumah, just as a few examples.
Well, that is not the context of what she said in the Dáil. She meant the Irish in general. Irish migrants to the US were not considered to be white, one of the points Sarkar makes and gets right in the book when she talks about how they were generally portrayed as ape like. Other migrants such Italians were also not considered to be white until the 20th Century. But I do agree that oppression Olympics are a waste of time.
Sarkar and her student union identity politics news group ( found on YouTube), remind me off a 90's UK kids TV program - Press Gang. Feel free to look for it - the resemblance is uncanny!
Sarkar and co do have the odd gem on their "working class" news outlet, if you can ignore Sarkars irrelevant wittering, look for the excellent "discussion" (mute Sarkar she adds nothing to the conversation) with Mick Lynch Secretary-general of the UK RMT union ( National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) Mick walks the walk - Sarkar is still living in a student flat, in some gentrified "working class" area, a fully paid up member of the laptop class.
I don’t think oppression Olympics are useful in anyway, although when Catherine Murphy talks about “privilege” it seems like she’s alluding to the many indentured or business minded Irish immigrants who became slave and land owners in the Caribbean/US, or the Irish immigrants to the US who joined the police and state apparatus to further racial segregation through police brutality in places like the South, Chicago, Boston, and New York and perhaps even the way other colonies fighting for freedom - like Haiti - who were never allowed to succeed in any way. Maybe privilege is a loaded word, but there is certainly a power disparity.
I just wanted to comment on the use of the "weapons" you mentioned (around cancel culture). I disagree with you. Autocrats have historically used them and they were co-opted by the left to punch upwards. Zionists (if, like me, you see Zionism as an expression of colonialism and a de facto form of fascism) have simply taken up their favourite little weapon to try and equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism to keep their apartheid state going—i.e., punching downwards again. But you could *always* be cancelled with saying the "wrong" thing; it's just that historically, the default arbitration was violence.
Sacking someone from a job, preventing them from getting it or suppressing free speech were always things the bosses did. That is true. But Cancel Culture is unique in many ways, as it is based upon college students taking the initiative to do these things or get the university to do them to people they simply disagree with, some of whom do not lecture or study social sciences but hard sciences and whose opinion on these matters would not impact their work at all. And whilst such practices are not new, the context is new and it was Zionists who first unfolded them on Campus, punching down. But the left for the most part did not punch up when it borrowed these weapons. A case in point, a porter at the elite British university Cambridge was hounded by wealthy upper class students who demanded that the university sack him. They were punching down as has been the case. He didn't agree with trans in women's spaces and voted against a motion at the local council on that. People have lost jobs, scholarships etc, over this stuff. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8883575/Cambridge-students-demand-transphobic-Labour-politician-loses-college-porter-job.html
A wing for trans in the male estate is an obvious solution. The aim is not a minimum number of rapes but no rapes, whether that is achieved or not is another matter. Stats also show that the most dangerous place in a prison is the cell, and overcrowding is a problem in bother the male and female estate. The factor most likely to indicate that a person may be a target of violence is prison is actually a disability and or a mental health issue.
Rapes in prison, are like rapes outside of it, not about sex but power. Rape is often a punishment and yes, men of all sizes and shapes get raped in prisons. In the US the stats are off the charts and not comparable to anywhere else but even in Britain, Ireland and other European countries men get raped or otherwise abused and the determining factor is not whether they are trans or not. Isla Bryson is one of the most dangerous criminals in Scotland. Nobody is touching him.
A book from this hyper liberal who once said that she was almost ‘A Communist’ . What a pathetic excuse for an activist. She has no idea of the real world s she’s never held a real job.
Interesting analysis, although I would point out that Mark Duggan was lawfully killed, not murdered.
Yes. I am aware of that but I opted for murdered to make a political point about his death. One I think Sarkar might agree with though she doesn't say it.
I’d not be surprised if she did, no.
Yeah I think people like Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Robin Kelley who have an understanding of racial capitalism are more useful here and offer more critical thought because they don’t negate the existence of anti-blackness or Zionism or white supremacy and their very clear function in capitalist systems. I liked the book Elite Capture too, which offers a more principled critique of identity politics than I think Sarkar does, at least in his writing on America. Genocide and chattel slavery have shaped this country.
Also, re comments—It’s exaggerated and kind of untrue that Irish people and Italian people were simply considered not-white in America. Sure they were seen as un-American, but they were considered more competent and valued than non-white people.
It’s just really over simplified history that idk minimizes the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and eugenics movement. The 1863 draft riots in NYC resulted in the lynchings of 11 Black people in NYC because Irish were mad they’d have to fight in civil war. Many more were killed by drowning. Businesses were destroyed. There was a whole campaign to hire immigrants brought by train from Alabama because they would do anything other than hire newly emancipated Black people in the state post reconstruction era.
Sure, race is a social construct, but we also need to be honest about how that construct has benefited certain people. Look at the treatment of immigrants arriving at Ellis vs Angel Island or The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. I think people get overly emotional when they hear these histories because they feel like these truths negate the struggles of their ancestors, and then lash out claiming talking honestly about history is “oppression Olympics.” Looking globally at caste and apartheid systems is useful too.
I’m a socialist. Working class solidarity is essential. Marxism is a useful framework, I root a lot of my thinking in Marx but coupled with Black and brown socialists who understand colonialism and racism, like Walter Rodney, Claudia Jones, Stokely Carmichael or Kwame Nkrumah, just as a few examples.
Couldn't agree more.
Well, that is not the context of what she said in the Dáil. She meant the Irish in general. Irish migrants to the US were not considered to be white, one of the points Sarkar makes and gets right in the book when she talks about how they were generally portrayed as ape like. Other migrants such Italians were also not considered to be white until the 20th Century. But I do agree that oppression Olympics are a waste of time.
Sarkar and her student union identity politics news group ( found on YouTube), remind me off a 90's UK kids TV program - Press Gang. Feel free to look for it - the resemblance is uncanny!
Sarkar and co do have the odd gem on their "working class" news outlet, if you can ignore Sarkars irrelevant wittering, look for the excellent "discussion" (mute Sarkar she adds nothing to the conversation) with Mick Lynch Secretary-general of the UK RMT union ( National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) Mick walks the walk - Sarkar is still living in a student flat, in some gentrified "working class" area, a fully paid up member of the laptop class.
Thanks. I will check it out.
I think their Downstream section is good. Wide range of speakers, some I agree with some I don't, some I'd never heard of.
I don’t think oppression Olympics are useful in anyway, although when Catherine Murphy talks about “privilege” it seems like she’s alluding to the many indentured or business minded Irish immigrants who became slave and land owners in the Caribbean/US, or the Irish immigrants to the US who joined the police and state apparatus to further racial segregation through police brutality in places like the South, Chicago, Boston, and New York and perhaps even the way other colonies fighting for freedom - like Haiti - who were never allowed to succeed in any way. Maybe privilege is a loaded word, but there is certainly a power disparity.
I just wanted to comment on the use of the "weapons" you mentioned (around cancel culture). I disagree with you. Autocrats have historically used them and they were co-opted by the left to punch upwards. Zionists (if, like me, you see Zionism as an expression of colonialism and a de facto form of fascism) have simply taken up their favourite little weapon to try and equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism to keep their apartheid state going—i.e., punching downwards again. But you could *always* be cancelled with saying the "wrong" thing; it's just that historically, the default arbitration was violence.
Sacking someone from a job, preventing them from getting it or suppressing free speech were always things the bosses did. That is true. But Cancel Culture is unique in many ways, as it is based upon college students taking the initiative to do these things or get the university to do them to people they simply disagree with, some of whom do not lecture or study social sciences but hard sciences and whose opinion on these matters would not impact their work at all. And whilst such practices are not new, the context is new and it was Zionists who first unfolded them on Campus, punching down. But the left for the most part did not punch up when it borrowed these weapons. A case in point, a porter at the elite British university Cambridge was hounded by wealthy upper class students who demanded that the university sack him. They were punching down as has been the case. He didn't agree with trans in women's spaces and voted against a motion at the local council on that. People have lost jobs, scholarships etc, over this stuff. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8883575/Cambridge-students-demand-transphobic-Labour-politician-loses-college-porter-job.html
Thank you! Spot on!
A wing for trans in the male estate is an obvious solution. The aim is not a minimum number of rapes but no rapes, whether that is achieved or not is another matter. Stats also show that the most dangerous place in a prison is the cell, and overcrowding is a problem in bother the male and female estate. The factor most likely to indicate that a person may be a target of violence is prison is actually a disability and or a mental health issue.
There is actually one such wing in the British penal system, but it is in the female estate.
Are small men not raped in prison anyway?
Rapes in prison, are like rapes outside of it, not about sex but power. Rape is often a punishment and yes, men of all sizes and shapes get raped in prisons. In the US the stats are off the charts and not comparable to anywhere else but even in Britain, Ireland and other European countries men get raped or otherwise abused and the determining factor is not whether they are trans or not. Isla Bryson is one of the most dangerous criminals in Scotland. Nobody is touching him.