Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[sihhi]

As a white person who has experienced racism and I've spent a good deal of my life involved in anti-fash stuff in one form or another, I find that fucking insulting tbh.

And plenty of white English people who aren't from any "minority" religious/ethnic backgrounds do experience racism based on their skin colour. It does not happen often but it happens.

LP's advice suggests that you are the one with the massive problem:

"If you’re a white person having a hard time reading this, I’d ask you to examine why are you feeling defensive? In my experience, when I’m defensive it’s usually because I’m avoiding some element of truth. It’s actually only threatening to me to admit that I have to unpack my own racism if I intend on doing nothing about it."

 

[xslavearcx]

i worked for a shop run by this asian chap, who offered me the job when i was talking to him about how skint me and wife were following our daughter being born, elabrorating on bill situations and so forth, so he knew how desperate for money i was and offered me a job being general dogsbody for £2 an hour. During which him and his son would make negative stereotyping comments about white people being drunk, from which i learned the word 'gory' (sp?) to denote white which was used in that nasty stereotyping way.

I don't know if that was classism or racism, vis a vis myself being the employee and all that, but it sure as hell wasn't nice...

 

[sihhi]

i worked for a shop run by this asian chap, who offered me the job when i was talking to him about how skint me and wife were following our daughter being born, elabrorating on bill situations and so forth, so he knew how desperate for money i was and offered me a job being general dogsbody for £2 an hour. During which him and his son would make negative stereotyping comments about white people being drunk, from which i learned the word 'gory' (sp?) to denote white which was used in that nasty stereotyping way.

I don't know if that was classism or racism, vis a vis myself being the employee and all that, but it sure as hell wasn't nice...

gori/gora in Hindi I think just means 'white' or 'fair' - it's not racist as a word.

 

[xslavearcx]

gori/gora in Hindi I think just means 'white' or 'fair' - it's not racist.

totally, nah but it was used conjoined to those stereotypes like...

 

[frogwoman]

i worked for a shop run by this asian chap, who offered me the job when i was talking to him about how skint me and wife were following our daughter being born, elabrorating on bill situations and so forth, so he knew how desperate for money i was and offered me a job being general dogsbody for £2 an hour. During which him and his son would make negative stereotyping comments about white people being drunk, from which i learned the word 'gory' (sp?) to denote white which was used in that nasty stereotyping way.

I don't know if that was classism or racism, vis a vis myself being the employee and all that, but it sure as hell wasn't nice...

Heard that word too. It's not nice. (well not always)

 

[Sue]

totally, nah but it was used conjoined to those stereotypes like...

Hmm, think you maybe need to do a wee bit of privilege checking there. That see-saw drawing is a good place to start, so I'm told...

 

[caleb]

Malcolm Harris as co-editor of this magazine gives the go-ahead to stuff like this

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/further-materials-toward-a-theory-of-the-hot-babe (NSFW picture)

"Once, only the professional Hot Babe adorned all major media outlets; now social media makes of everyone a Hot Babe, should they be willing. What is private, secret, is not the detail of the life but the disappearance at its core. I mean something that is always in the process of disappearing. That’s what the Hot Babe feels like to touch, although you are not strictly permitted to touch her; it would only be two nothingnesses touching, nothing touching nothing."

"The Hot Babe is not good or rational political praxis, or does not seem to point to any current ideas of good or rational praxis—“organization,” “demands”—yet she is the image of the desire of the object of that praxis, as a class. Looking down on the Hot Babe should give you vertigo: All qualities dissolve in her. In the end it’s you who disappears in the hard blue of her eyes, which are always blue, even if the Hot Babe’s particular eyes are green or brown."

He has a nice roof garden in his building

https://twitter.com/BigMeanInternet/status/356791603983167489

Some context: there was a French journal in the late 90s / early 00s called Tiqqun. Same / similar people went under the name the Invisible Committee and wrote the now notorious 'Coming Insurrection', associated with the Tarnac 9 group which got busted a few years ago (and which that wonky-eyed undercover had some involvement in, if I remember write). Most apt description of Tiqqun I've heard is 'crimethinc for people who like French critical theory': sorta post-situationist with autonomist influences and the likes of Foucault thrown in, broadly associated with insurrectionary anarchism and what is now called communization theory.

Tiqqun wrote a piece called something like 'Preliminary materials towards a theory of Young-Girl', which wasn't meant to be gendered by a descriptiong of the current human condition for both males and females (or summin, I don't quite get it). The New Inkwirry published this last week, a feminist critique of Young-Girl:

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/further-materials-toward-a-theory-of-the-man-child/

I guess the piece you link must be part of this. Quite why, now, when Tiqqun dissolved over a decade ago I don't quite know.

(For the record, I only know of Tiqqun through third hand sources, so this might be a load of crap but there you go).

 

[sihhi]

totally, nah but it was used conjoined to those stereotypes like...

I agree stereotypes are bad, but:
Isn't a form of bizarre stereotyping to suggest that it's committed anti-racist white people not remembering black people's names and not doing everything quite the way one black person commented on an art show etc that's keeping the worldwide black population stuck in poverty (how I undestand "white supremacy"). It's not capitalism and rule by its overlords.
It's stereotyping those not anti-racist white people as prejudiced unless they take up the 2,000 word guide book and liberal pathway.

 

[butchersapron]

Some context: there was a French journal in the late 90s / early 00s called Tiqqun. Same / similar people went under the name the Invisible Committee and wrote the now notorious 'Coming Insurrection', associated with the Tarnac 9 group which got busted a few years ago (and which that wonky-eyed undercover had some involvement in, if I remember write). Most apt description of Tiqqun I've heard is 'crimethinc for people who like French critical theory': sorta post-situationist with autonomist influences and the likes of Foucault thrown in, broadly associated with insurrectionary anarchism and what is now called communization theory.

Tiqqun wrote a piece called something like 'Preliminary materials towards a theory of Young-Girl', which wasn't meant to be gendered by a descriptiong of the current human condition for both males and females (or summin, I don't quite get it). The New Inkwirry published this last week, a feminist critique of Young-Girl:

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/further-materials-toward-a-theory-of-the-man-child/

I guess the piece you link must be part of this. Quite why, now, when Tiqqun dissolved over a decade ago I don't quite know.

(For the record, I only know of Tiqqun through third hand sources, so this might be a load of crap but there you go).

Which Nina Power's She's just not that Into you review puts firmly in its place. The tiqquin rubbish is here btw. I wouldn't bother.

Lolling at the bit on that NI piece where they try to explain some of the early 70s autonomist stuff. Content: wrong. Chronology: hopelessly wrong.

 

[Delroy Booth]

gori/gora in Hindi I think just means 'white' or 'fair' - it's not racist as a word.

I dunno about that y'know, I've heard Gora be used a pejorative insult too. Same's true of "black" it's really dependent on context but it can be used as a racist epithet for sure.

 

[DaveCinzano]

From the first comment:

Thanks for making this post. I’m going to share it on my facebook wall and twitter.

wonder how long we'll find that posted on the annoying facebook posts thread

It's like flushing dye down the toilet to locate where your sewerage system blockages and leaks are.

 

[sihhi]

I dunno about that y'know, I've heard Gora be used a pejorative insult too. Same's true of "black" it's really dependent on context but it can be used as a racist epithet for sure.

In which case it's no more racist as a word than 'white' is. What is the point you're making?

 

[sihhi]

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/further-materials-toward-a-theory-of-the-man-child/

I guess the piece you link must be part of this. Quite why, now, when Tiqqun dissolved over a decade ago I don't quite know.

(For the record, I only know of Tiqqun through third hand sources, so this might be a load of crap but there you go).

I understand so little of his publication but his twitter today has been heavy on anger against people teaching in universities

https://twitter.com/BigMeanInternet/status/357167637844856832

That tweet compares the relationship between professor and student to that of boss and worker, and there's a discussion (with someone who's probably teacher) where Malcolm the editor suggests there's no such thing as a good school structure as opposed to a bad one:

what about that was transactional/doesn't apply to all pedagogy? don't go all good school/bad school on me.

https://twitter.com/BigMeanInternet/status/357171939086839810

Confusing.

 

[rekil]

Also it assumes that the only racism that matters is the one based on skin colour. What about Catholics v Protestants in Northern Ireland? Or people not being served in pubs because they "look like pikeys"? Where are these fools intersectional analyses of that?

Polish flags, upside down ones, have been going on 12th July bonfires lately.




Protestants need someone, some proper hardcore para-intersectionalists, to go in and check their privilege for them.

 

[xslavearcx]

In which case it's no more racist as a word than 'white' is. What is the point you're making?

well thats why i was saying wasn't sure if that usage and overall pattern of behaviour in that particular context was classist or racist and this is waht makes the whole interesectional take on things pretty damn confusing to me..

 

[sihhi]

Polish flags, upside down ones, have been going on 12th July bonfires lately.

That doesn't matter so much see below it needs a woman only then does sexist anti-polonism come into play (which naturally matters more than the anti-socialism).

 

[sihhi]

well thats why i was saying wasn't sure if that usage and overall pattern of behaviour in that particular context was classist or racist and this is waht makes the whole interesectional take on things pretty damn confusing to me..

I have no idea how the intersectional take on it works, but yes if used in a racist or chauvinist manner, it's racist or chauvinist, but the word itself is not like n word or p word.

 

[xslavearcx]

I have no idea how the intersectional take on it works, but yes if used in a racist or chauvinist manner, it's racist or chauvinist, but the word itself is not like n word or p word.

aye totally, i think a lot of this discussion subsequent to my post has probably come about by my bad articulation of those events to which i apologise....

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

That doesn't matter so much see below it needs a woman only then does sexist anti-polonism come into play (which naturally matters more than the anti-socialism).

yes I think it does doesn't it?

 

[sihhi]

yes I think it does doesn't it?

Of course it does to people on here , but LP doesn't mind about it cue carrying on chummy twitter talk with vicious 'occupy the showers' anti-socialist Louise Mensch, but attacking SpineyNorman as racist for linking to an IWCA piece.

 

[J Ed]

 

[rekil]

Not clicking that. Summary please.

 

[J Ed]

I can't bring myself to click it sober

 

[xslavearcx]

I can't bring myself to click it sober

haha thats a cheek posting that and not even watching that haha!

 

[The Pale King]

I can't bring myself to click it sober

Get drinking then!

 

[SpineyNorman]

It's shit. Don't bother clicking.

I didn't even need to watch it to provide everyone with this summary

 

[SpineyNorman]

Actually, I'm up to about 1.30 and haven't so far heard anything I disagree with, or at least nothing I have a problem with

Either she's learned something or I'm turning into a liberal. I did have a pint with Owen Jones on Saturday night though so maybe I am

 

[DotCommunist]

oblique delta reference

 

[SpineyNorman]

That's probably the best talk I've ever heard her give to be fair. Admittedly the competition isn't very stiff because I've not heard her speak much at all and what I have heard has been crap but it's really not bad.

 

[emanymton]

Actually, I'm up to about 1.30 and haven't so far heard anything I disagree with, or at least nothing I have a problem with

Either she's learned something or I'm turning into a liberal. I did have a pint with Owen Jones on Saturday night though so maybe I am

I wonder if anyone asked her what feminist rape porn would look like?