charlie [they/them, comrade/them]

I’ve been a reading What Is Antiracism?: And Why It Means Anticapitalism by Arun Kundnani

Acts of individual racist discrimination and abuse remain common enough. But they are not the primary means through which racial domination is effected. Neoliberalism has given racial capitalism ways to organize itself without the need for the explicit vocabulary or attitudes of white supremacy. Neoliberal racism operates through the hidden hand of property ownership and the iron fist of security agencies. The mute compulsions of market pressures are upheld through the intensified brutality of racially coded bordering, incarceration, policing, and war. The “rigour of the system makes it superfluous to make a daily assertion of superiority,” as Fanon put it.₁ We fail to grasp this reconfiguration of a whole structure if we understand racism today as solely a pattern of unconscious biases and micro-aggressions. pg.223

Emphasis mine. This book has helped me reframe my understanding of what racism is, and what actions I can take as an individual to meaningfully combat racism in a material way. What I’m coming to understand, in regards to racially charged words, is that the best thing I can do is navigate my life in such a way that I generally avoid those terms, because ultimately when we’re conflicted over the issue of language, the true root systems of racism remain unaffected.

I respect that, it’s not something I’d thought about before in this context. Genuinely, thank you for giving me something to think about.

“A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?” ― Frederick Engels

So the only Pareto efficient solution is to grow the economy until all the poor people make enough money.

Boy is that some head stuck up their own ass economist shit.

Hopefully they fix the emoji bug soon (or whenever they want to get around to it honestly), I find it hilarious but I can most definitely feel for those caught in the cross-fire.

What goes beneath the middle class? It’s the implication Mac…

Disability programs in the US are fucking criminal and support programs are actively being dismantled everywhere I look around me. If you need to vent, I’m an open pair of ears.

That was incredibly frustrating to read through.