shit MANarchists say

[ViolentPanda]

not a big fan of privilege theory but the london anarchist scene is populated by "mainly white, posh shouty boys", and there has been a couple of instances recently that highlight the problem.

1. new anarchist group set up in london. At end of first meeting (around 80 people in attendance) people were asked to bring their ideas/proposals to next meeting about the structure of the group. Young female indian anarchist wrote up several points of discussion on how this new group could move forward (based, incidently, on what people had talked about in the first meeting). The facilitator of the next meeting (who was also the new secretary of the group) - white middle aged middle class been hanging off the london anarchist scene for years, of his own back refused point blank to allow these points to be put to the meeting, despite having been sent three requests previously to have them put on the agenda. He announced to the room of around 40 people the items were not up for discussion because and i quote "there are too many words". This person was appointed secretary of the group by the facilitator of the previous meeting (a white male anarchist and also a friend of his).

Now i don't know what you call this. The privilege crowd will have all manner of words that defines and explain it, but two things spring to mind

a - would he have acted that way if the person hadn't been a young asian female?
b - did he feel he had the authority to act this way because he was secretary of the group - an appointment given by a mate of his?



2. Meeting set up to discuss the structure idea of this same group. Again the young indian female anarchist put forward her ideas about she had previously submitted. One faux-lumpen white male middle aged anarchist who's been hanging off the anarchist scene for years suddenly pipes up that the discussion should end and the meeting stop now. When it didn't he got up and walked out followed by five other (white male anarchists). I'd never seen anything like it before. Should point out these five had had a meeting together immediately prior to this one and came to this meeting late, as a group.

One of the people walking out was also the facilitator of the first meeting above.

Now, being a white working class male anarchist whose been hanging off the anarchist scene for years i haven't seen this kind of thing happen before mainly because there has never really been a young female asian woman who has wanted to be an active participant in the anarchist scene before. Can it be explained by importing wholesale social theory from the states? Whatever you want to call it it looks bad. To be honest i'd be happy with just plain old racism/sexism.

Scene-ism pure and simple. There are always cliques (and this applies across the political spectrum, not just to the anarcho milieu) that try and "capture" new developments. In my experience it's something done by people who talk about politics a lot, but do little as a matter of policy. I could give examples, but I'd rather not side-track the debate any further.

 

[Vintage Paw]

On the subject of the word 'cunt' - I love it. But I'm okay with other people not liking it, and if I'm bandying it about and someone asks me to try to dial it back because they don't, I'm not going to be a dick about it. I don't want to go out of my way to offend someone. If I did, that would say more about me being a self-entitled twat than the person who, for whatever reason, was offended by something.

If that person is being a dick about it though, then I'd question their approach to asking me to go easy on it. But I can't see a single thing wrong with trying to just be a nice person. It's not like my use of the word cunt helps me be better at politics. It's not essential.

The insistence on the right to be a prick and offend whoever you want, just because you don't like being asked to not offend someone, is pretty fucking dickish. It's not all or nothing. You can give someone respect without it being a case of having your agency taken away from you.

 

[sihhi]

• Note the only concrete modern-day application given is: "certain strands of radical feminism have refused to accept the validity of trans* struggles, keeping trans women out of women’s spaces (see the controversies over Radfem 2012 and some of the workshops at Women Up North 2012 over their “women born women” policies)." Apparently this means "the most oppressed get the shitty end of both sticks (in this case cisnormativity and patriarchy), with feminism, the movement that is supposed to be at the forefront of fighting the oppression that affects both parties (patriarchy) failing at one of its sharpest intersections." (There's no olympics but the most oppressed are the "trans women". Why?)

• There is worry about transsexuals (why the insistence on joining RadFem 2012, if they don't want you?), but not about why working-class women are largely absent from the feminist movement (that's the overall opinion of a w/class anarcha-feminist) or are largely absent and sidelined from the anti-cuts efforts.

• Note how the characterisation of "capitalist privilege" or "class privilege" is comic-book:

"Somebody born into a family who owns a chain of supermarkets or factories can, when they inherit their fortune, forgo it. They can collectivise their empire and give it to the workers, go and work in it themselves for the same share of the profits as everybody else. Capitalists can, if they choose, give up their privilege. This makes it OK for us to think of them as bad people if they don't, and justified in taking it from them by force in a revolutionary situation."

That's it. What of people whose families owned one supermarket or owned one factory? Whose family connections because their dads were architects opens doors for them? People whose parents were doctors and so get given money and the inside tips on how to train and secure that position? What about people whose parents are managers in the supermarket (not owners) bossing around everyone else, nice homes, nice cars, hotel holidays, trips to the zoo but making others redundant when the time comes? What of people whose parents are accountants to lots of people owning just one supermarket or one factory, enabling their capitalist behaviour?

(P.S. Do we need to thank them for letting us think of capitalists as bad people. Am I justified in taking their factory if it's not a revolutionary situation? Are white racists not bad people, because their privilege is somehow un-removable?)

 

[sihhi]

She particularly didn't feel that the point made about looking at things in this sort of way makes for great propaganda due to its inherent inclusivity to be at all laughable.

I need someone to translate kyriarchy into our language before I can explain it to my mum.

It's quite a hefty document but

"men showing weakness, emotion and a capacity for caring labour are punished by patriarchy for letting the side down and giving women the opportunity to challenge their oppression"

isn't true.

Men aren't punished for this, if anything they are positively lauded for this. Look at the government concern to recruit male primary school teachers because women dominate the sector now. Men working in care homes are not victimised and put on lower job specifications because they are part of the caring sector workforce and are male.

 

[sihhi]

• Re: Nice one's post - it's up to the other 75 people at the meeting to challenge the unacceptable behaviour, the question is will using privilege theory instead of a more blunt 'who chose you to be Y' 'steady on, other have yet to X' 'let Z say what they want more directly' achieve what you want. Like others have said it sounds like the internal politics of a group that doesn't know what it is or what it's doing, or that those folks in charge would have squeezed against anyone new. Some people really like being in 'charge' of things, having lots of roles, even being the ones who do X or Y. We can't know the exact situation from what you've posted either, so it's impossible to know if the man would have done if she wasn't a woman.

 

[sihhi]

• The only other vaguely recent reference to the importance of privilege theory in social struggles is:
  

  "For instance, overwhelmingly white, middle class feminist organisations of the 60s and 70s have been criticised by women of colour and disabled women for focusing solely on the legalisation of abortion at a time when Puerto-Rican women and disabled women faced forced sterilisation, and many women lacked access to essential services during pregnancy and childbirth. Although the availability of abortion certainly wasn’t irrelevant to these women, the campaigns failed to also consider the affordability of abortion, and completely ignored the concerns of women being denied the right to have a child."

• The description is something of a lie, radical organisations always sought and demanded free abortion on demand. If some feminist groups didn't, maybe NOW was split on the issue although I can't recall it, it was because the adopted their chosen politics due to the weakness of the movement, it was NEVER as strong as it is sometimes claimed. On Puerto Rican women, this was a policy applied only to the island itself, and was slowly overcome throughout the 1970s by popular struggle. There were classist inducements to sterilisation but it was not in the 1970s at least anything like a programme of forced sterilisation. It's an example of US colonial control over Puerto Rico, which nationalists in Puerto Rico of many stripes fought back against. It's true to point out that groups in a home country have little cared about the demands within a colony - but isn't that like a truism?

• More generally the AF, an organisation for struggle on the British mainland, only refers to the experiences of 1960s 1970s America leading up to and after Roe v Wade. It doesn't mention the experience of northern Ireland: those in the 6 counties were not sterilised and not given reproductive rights, until much more recently. It doesn't mention the examinations of vagina and hymen performed upon immigrant wives coming to Britain for the first time. It doesn't mention why the struggle against the deportation of Hong Kong women in the 1970s and 1980s was so weak, but it focuses on a US colony.

• As butchersapron has noted it's coming out of a US liberal arts college perspective. It's been a long journey route, but the decline of autonomous class organisation (the TUC can switch on 2 million on strike but switch it off just as easily) over the past 30 years combined with the technological improvements to the internet (massively US-dominated in output) mean it has finally come to British activist groups via the internet. This doesn't mean it's on the rise in general.

"Most feminist groups now tend to talk about “reproductive rights” rather than “abortion rights”

This doesn't feel like much a step forward at all, because it allows the right to step in and claim 'the man' has some sort of 'reproductive right' (a nonsense on stilts) on a par with the woman's "reproductive rights". I like 'Abortion rights' (here, everywhere. free for all, for all time, every time etc etc)

• "The reason we need to organise autonomously is that we need to be free of the presence of privilege to speak freely." I agree with the point here, in general but, having said all of this, it blames some women for wanting to organise autonomously as 'women born as women', in the Rad-Fem 2012. "we must acknowledge that privilege theory does not, of necessity, lead to liberalism and cross-class struggles. It may do so when it is used by liberals and reformists, but not when used by revolutionary class struggle anarchists." It celebrates the effort against Rad-Fem "One positive that’s come out of these recent examples is the joining together of feminist and trans* activist groups to challenge the entry policy of Radfem 2012. This is leading to more communication, solidarity and the possibility of joint actions between these groups." If you are not interested in cross-class struggles, why celebrate the joining up of certain feminist and transsexual women (ie those born men) activist groups. Doesn't that mean trampling the rights of RadFem to organise autonomously?

 

[sihhi]

• When it states "We have to challenge ourselves to look out for campaigns that, due to the privilege of those who initiate them, lack awareness of how an issue differs across intersections." It doesn't mention a more concrete class-based example such as London's 'antigentrification' or 'housing struggles' being monopolised by liberal charity types (who often have fairly wealthy undeclared incomes). Perhaps London is unique but entering the central London activist world is like crossing a warp field from an ordinary mixed but mostly working-class suburb. (It feels like another city to me at Islington anyway so that might just be me.)

• Or take the case of the very recent environmental anti-climate change movement (dominated/monopolised by C.A.C.C. and the wilder edge of Plane Stupid), their sample actions included: an attempt to block the functioning from the outside of a coal-fired power station, not from the productive workforce or from the area whose power it supplied, and then a position paper demanding a surcharge on airline firms 'to end the prevalence of cheap flights'.

• Or take the case of anti-deportation struggles always monopolised and dominated by middle-class people desperate to tell the world 'death/torture awaits X if X is deported' in horrid foreign regimes. Note how rarely the people involved or under threat directly communicates, how rarely why it's in the interests of indigenous working-class people to not have struggles divided by citizenship status is stressed (If the visa lasted longer than 2 years at a time, you would see a higher degree of class struggle from East Europeans). (Border controls in the Carribbean make it nigh-on impossible to organise essential cross-island solidarity actions, so supplies and production are switched to another island)

• Sometimes the exaggerations backfire and you get different anti-racist groups speaking in totally different languages about the various regimes.

• In Germany when liberal Kurdish campaigns struggle against deportation to Turkey, it's on the implicit basis that they are special cases from the more general failure to meet citizenship demands imposed upon all migrants from Turkey, this draws fire from the liberal Turkish integrationist advancement campaigns who think there should be no special allowances, if you are a German citizen you stay, if you are no longer considered a refugee you leave.

• When asylum campaigners tried to extend allowance for Kosovan families to be accepted in Britain it was on the basis that the Serbian regime was so monstrous that this was a necessity. By 2002 when the Milosevic regime had long collapsed (in 2000), it still argued that Kosovo, even with a KFOR occupation dividing the separate communities was tantamount to death for a Kosovan. It instantly counter-mobilised the right to score an easy victory "

• It's a similar thing with Czechs and Poles who are immigrants here as EU and asylum seeker Romani people from Poland and Czech Republic. 'Why they (gypsies) get help but not me? They (British immigration) didn't let my girlfriend come, but they let gypsies.' The middle-class asylum seeker struggle can only assist the Romani at as the immigrant East Europeans see the expense of themselves. 'They are dragging us down. They don't dress like Europeans, they wear black skirts to the pavement.'

• The pro-Palestinian rights movement, often they are monopolised by figures eager to outdo one another on the activist superiority of the demands (middle-class obsession deriving from the worthless emptiness of middle-class lives). Hence, calls for Israel's ambassador to be withdrawn (but no corresponding calls for the rest of the world to withdraw British embassies for its invasion of Iraq), a general boycott of everything Israeli rather than one targetting firms that operate on the back of IDF-apartheid in the territories.

• What of the case of anti-prison struggles, it's eased off now, but for a while, it was let's out-do one another with calls for the abolition of prisons as a whole, or for the total removal of all women in prisons. Those demands weren't taken seriously by working-class people - including women - in general, or even by by working-class ex-cons (who knew what a mountain it would be to climb especially when you've only got a winter coat and pair of DMs). So now it's more concrete and attempting to communicate with serving prisoners what the direction should be. It's worth wondering about "privilege" in a prisoners' rights movement dominated by those who aren't prisoners.

• Introducing fancy language into things. It has ruined literary festivals or talking about books for ordinary people. It has also ruined 'the law' and legal concepts - these are made to be impenetrable. No one human really wants to go through employment law or arbitration law - even though those things are crucial.

• Before 1948 and Labour's reforms, it used to be compulsory to pass a Latin test in order to study medicine at Oxbridge, ostensibly for physiological knowledge, in fact as a barrier to retain the class character of the profession. (Oxbridge even had its own MPs until the same time) Isn't there a danger of the same thing, a danger of "Master's Degree privilege" - understanding 'intersectionality' - being the barrier that keeps people out, as much as it supposedly helps headscarved Turkish old ladies in?

 

[cesare]

How do anarchists balance the right of women to autonomously self-organise with decrying identity politics?

 

[SpineyNorman]

My mum loved it, she didn't think at all that this document (and remember its not been adopted by the AF, it's a discussion piece, produced for the internal bulletin i presume) was a classic example of the sort of exclusions that come with the small-private-liberal-arts-college-ification of the soppy end of anarchism at all. She didn't feel alienated by the language at all, and didn't feel that there was a contradiction in the demand that other people must take up the use of these technical terms as they were coined by 'those at the forefront of struggle' and so best expressed her own experiences. She particularly didn't feel that the point made about looking at things in this sort of way makes for great propaganda due to its inherent inclusivity to be at all laughable.

She also wanted me to add in a tokenistic way the the caveat that her thoughts on this documents responses to the issues are exactly that, thoughts on these responses, not on the issues of sexism, racism etc Just to cover her back like.

My mum says it's shit because it doesn't mention Jesus even once

This has turned into a really interesting thread IMO, thanks especially to cesare, sihhi and nigelirritible. Not really sure where I stand on this - seems to me like there's some potentially useful stuff in there but if it's not integrated into a serious analysis of wider social relations it has the potential to either descend into identity politics or be used by identity politikers as cover for their shit politics.

 

[sihhi]

There's also a general problem with privilege theory in that, it allows, regardless of however strong the AF thinks it is, to let liberals carry on doing the running. For a while, modern capitalism has been about 'including' the 'excluded' "privileging" the "non-privileged": Magic Johnson in the black American ghettos, positive discrimination to produce (ideologically pure and 'British' but) non-white army officers, 50-50 firm management boards in Norway's capitalist firms by law, F.A. clubs actively scouting in the West African youth football leagues, 'scholarships' and 'assisted places' for the unprivileged poor, 'the priority for new development will be our poor crumbling inner city estates', microcredit for womens' domestic textile activity, Rwanda's 33% female parliamentarian quota, the ethnic minority business grants, reservations for OBCs in India, fair-trade chocolate with contracts to Luo-owned farms in Kenya, payments to peasant family heads for every female child that attends schools, South Africa's broad-based black economic empowerment, JPA scholarships in Malaysia, the 30% bumiputera equity rule, Lord Davies report on women on boards (up from 9% to 12% - in spite of the recession). In general it's how capitalism has been operating in the West since the 1990s, after a version of it became popular on the left in the West in the 1980s - municipal socialism in Bologna and the GLA's funding grants)
It also lets the political right in. Underprivileged Nigerian in London=Well-educated, English speaking Hausa in Nigeria. That's the same person, one 5 hour plane trip away. 'If they don't like it here, they are welcome to go back home'. Underprivileged here=Privileged there. 'How can degree-educated Nigerians complain about how they are only security guards or porters in this country, if they were back home with good English, a couple of years working in London would be like lords in their country... they want money for their relatives too... they don't spend their money here' etc etc.

Men, white people, straight people, cisgendered people etc., can't give up their privilege - no matter how much they may want to. It is forced on them by a system they cannot opt out of, or choose to stop benefiting from.

Isn’t it enough to talk about racism, sexism, homophobia etc. without having to call white, male and straight people something that offends them? If it’s just the terminology you object to, be aware that radical black activists, feminists, queer activists and disabled activists widely use the term privilege. Oppressed groups need to lead the struggles to end their oppressions, and that means these oppressed groups get to define the struggle and the terms we use to talk about it. It is, on one level, simply not up to class struggle groups made up of a majority of white males to tell people of colour and women what words are useful in the struggles against white supremacy and patriarchy. If you dislike the term but agree with the concept, then it would show practical solidarity to leave your personal discomfort out of the argument, accept that the terminology has been chosen, and start using the same term as those at the forefront of these struggles.

So who is at the forefront of these struggles? Who are all these "radical black activists, feminists, queer activists and disabled activists" eager to have the concept be popularised? I see a lot of liberal 'poser' 'activists' using the term.

 

[sihhi]

How do anarchists balance the right of women to autonomously self-organise with decrying identity politics?

I'm not an anarchist, but I suspect it's about whether the autonomous self-organisation is 'women', pleading for identification and incorporation with capitalist women; or if it is working-class women - people who have zero interest in capitalist women (or women who chase after capitalists to marry them) but want to promote anti-capitalism by and for women.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Thanks for your posts sihhi.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

So who is at the forefront of these struggles? Who are all these "radical black activists, feminists, queer activists and disabled activists" eager to have the concept be popularised? I see a lot of liberal 'poser' 'activists' using the term.

Yes, the terminology and the theoretical framework came from guilty white semi-Maoist anti-racists in the US and then was developed in the American feminist academy. It is now beginning to colonise elements of the British left through the influence of American radical liberals on the internet. The notion that "the terminology has been chosen" and is already the preference of those "at the forefront of the struggles" is simply 100% false, particularly in a European context.

Indeed it represents an attempt to guilt trip people into accepting liberal theories, on the basis that to do otherwise is to scorn the right of "those in the forefront of the struggles", and those at various oppression "intersections" to choose their own language. Get used to this sort of thing, by the way. If this stuff catches on, you are going to be hearing a lot more of it.

It is, on one level, simply not up to class struggle groups made up of a majority of white males to tell people of colour and women what words are useful in the struggles against white supremacy and patriarchy.

Leaving aside my irritation at the importation of the Americanism "people of colour", and the dishonesty of ascribing this language to "people of colour" and "women" as undifferentiated groups, I'm left wondering whether these people think that Noel Ignatin and Ted Allen were black women? Rather than white male activists in and leaders of "class struggle groups made up of a majority of white males"?

By the way, is the document officially from the AFed Women's Caucus itself? Or from some members of it? The part at the top is a little ambiguous, but seems to say it's a women's group document.

 

[cesare]

I'm not an anarchist, but I suspect it's about whether the autonomous self-organisation is 'women', pleading for identification and incorporation with capitalist women; or if it is working-class women - people who have zero interest in capitalist women (or women who chase after capitalists to marry them) but want to promote anti-capitalism by and for women.

I understand that anti-capitalist class conscious segregation is preferable to capitalist vertical segregation ... I just wondered what the rationale is for having any form of separatist politics at all (but I realise that an anarchist is the best person to answer, any insights welcomed though).

 

[sihhi]

Indeed it represents an attempt to guilt trip people into accepting liberal theories, on the basis that to do otherwise is to scorn the right of "those in the forefront of the struggles", and those at various oppression "intersections" to choose their own language.

In fairness to the document it states it is for social revolution and dispossesion of capitalists as a class for the benefit of everyone.

Leaving aside my irritation at the importation of the Americanism "people of colour", and the dishonesty of ascribing this language to "people of colour" and "women" as undifferentiated groups, I'm left wondering whether these people think that Noel Ignatin and Ted Allen were black women? Rather than white male activists in and leaders of "class struggle groups made up of a majority of white males"?

"People of colour" (depending on how it's used) sometimes assumes only skin-tone determines national chauvinism, whilst even in America with its strong colour line, it can surface like with references to guido slobs (unemployed Italo-Americans) and trailer X (white and poor). It's also confusing because many Mexican-American latino/as , particularly of criollo and mestizo heritage, are visibly white (and some even have anglo names), and many do not see themselves as "of colour", linking that with indigenous-heritage Mexicans.
It has about less relevance to somewhere like Canada with the Quebecois French, and zero relevance in Russia, but it wasn't designed for export, even liberal feminist sociology professors would accept that, wouldn't they?

By the way, is the document officially from the AFed Women's Caucus itself? Or from some members of it? The part at the top is a little ambiguous, but seems to say it's a women's group document.

I've no idea.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

In fairness to the document it states it is for social revolution and dispossesion of capitalists as a class for the benefit of everyone.

Yes, it's exactly as confused as you'd expect a document trying to fuse this sort of thing with class struggle anarchism to be.

But to be more clear, I was referring specifically to the argument that it's not up to "class struggle groups made up of a majority of white males to tell people of colour and women what words are useful in the struggles against white supremacy and patriarchy." Which contains quite a number of rhetorical sleights of hand in one sentence. Women and black people (sorry, I just can't keep using that fucking Americanism) are treated as undifferentiated blocs. The ideas of "privilege theory" are then ascribed to those blocs. Class struggle groups are assigned white maleness. Disagreement with the language of (and therefore the theoretical framework of) "privilege theory" is cast as arrogant, racist and sexist.

That's what I was describing when I said "it represents an attempt to guilt trip people into accepting liberal theories, on the basis that to do otherwise is to scorn the right of "those in the forefront of the struggles", and those at various oppression "intersections" to choose their own language."

 

[sihhi]

But to be more clear, I was referring specifically to the argument that it's not up to "class struggle groups made up of a majority of white males to tell people of colour and women what words are useful in the struggles against white supremacy and patriarchy." Which contains quite a number of rhetorical sleights of hand in one sentence. Women and black people (sorry, I just can't keep using that fucking Americanism) are treated as undifferentiated blocs. The ideas of "privilege theory" are then ascribed to those blocs. Class struggle groups are assigned white maleness. Disagreement with the language of (and therefore the theoretical framework of) "privilege theory" is cast as arrogant, racist and sexist.

You get all that? I don't think they're going to say the rest of AF is 'arrogant, racist and sexist' if AF decides privilege theory is not for them.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

You get all that? I don't think they're going to say the rest of AF is 'arrogant, racist and sexist' if AF decides privilege theory is not for them.

I don't pretend to know what they really think. But the rhetorical devices used in that passage amount to a clear implication that it is arrogant, racist and sexist for class struggle groups to oppose privilege theory. Read it. What other meaning could that passage have? Why include it otherwise?

Let's be clear here, even amongst US radical liberals where the use of this sort of rhetoric to undermine disagreement is extremely common, I don't think that the people using that technique necessarily think that the people they are baiting are actually racists or sexists. Sometimes it's a cynical ploy. Sometimes it hasn't been thought through.

 

[emma goldman]

not a big fan of privilege theory but the london anarchist scene is populated by "mainly white, posh shouty boys", and there has been a couple of instances recently that highlight the problem.

1. new anarchist group set up in london. At end of first meeting (around 80 people in attendance) people were asked to bring their ideas/proposals to next meeting about the structure of the group. Young female indian anarchist wrote up several points of discussion on how this new group could move forward (based, incidently, on what people had talked about in the first meeting). The facilitator of the next meeting (who was also the new secretary of the group) - white middle aged middle class been hanging off the london anarchist scene for years, of his own back refused point blank to allow these points to be put to the meeting, despite having been sent three requests previously to have them put on the agenda. He announced to the room of around 40 people the items were not up for discussion because and i quote "there are too many words". This person was appointed secretary of the group by the facilitator of the previous meeting (a white male anarchist and also a friend of his).

Now i don't know what you call this. The privilege crowd will have all manner of words that defines and explain it, but two things spring to mind

a - would he have acted that way if the person hadn't been a young asian female?
b - did he feel he had the authority to act this way because he was secretary of the group - an appointment given by a mate of his?



2. Meeting set up to discuss the structure idea of this same group. Again the young indian female anarchist put forward her ideas about she had previously submitted. One faux-lumpen white male middle aged anarchist who's been hanging off the anarchist scene for years suddenly pipes up that the discussion should end and the meeting stop now. When it didn't he got up and walked out followed by five other (white male anarchists). I'd never seen anything like it before. Should point out these five had had a meeting together immediately prior to this one and came to this meeting late, as a group.

One of the people walking out was also the facilitator of the first meeting above.

Now, being a white working class male anarchist whose been hanging off the anarchist scene for years i haven't seen this kind of thing happen before mainly because there has never really been a young female asian woman who has wanted to be an active participant in the anarchist scene before. Can it be explained by importing wholesale social theory from the states? Whatever you want to call it it looks bad. To be honest i'd be happy with just plain old racism/sexism.

The London anarchist scene is populated by many "white, posh shouty boys", however it is not just poshboy anarchists who are sexist and demean womens opinions, and I would say that actually there are plenty of sexist shouty working-class men populating the London anarchist scene.
Now you reference class quite a bit in your post, you mention the secretary who is "white middle aged middle class", and also the protaganist in the second meeting who is "faux-lumpen", and then describe your self as "white working class male anarchist". However you fail to mention the class of the "young indian female anarchist".
I was at the meeting you're describing. Now I have no idea the class of the woman referenced, however I suspect that because you haven't mentioned it that perhaps she may be middle-class and seeing as we're talking about intersectionality and privilege, perhaps that may be significant.
Also as far as I recollect the original proposal which you describe as being written by the Indian female anarchist was actually written by a group of people from a north london anarchist collective, or at least it was presented to the meeting as such.
Now there is no way I am going to deny that sexism may have been behind her/your proposal being dropped, however I think that it is a little bit disengenous to imply that it was the main reason. I had no idea that the woman in question had written the proposal, and so also that may have been the case for many of the other people at the meeting.

I also remember that at that meeting youre talking about a working-class white woman asked that the following statement be included in the aims of the groups "The group will also actively confront, challenge and organise against racism, sexism, homophobia etc and its impact on working-class peoples lives" or something like that. At the second meeting which afaik was a discussion meeting to further thrash out the aims and principles of the group, that proposal was dropped from the aims and principles because "anarchists already have that covered and it goes without saying". However other pretty generic and obvious statements about smashing capitalism and the state were included.
Now if the "faux-lumpen" anarchist and his mates had walked out of the meeting, then presumably the proposal was dropped by you and whoever was left in the meeting. So I would like to ask you why a clear statement of feminist intent was dropped from the groups aims and principles, especially when you and the young Indian female anarchist are so concerned by the oppression of women.
Was it anything to do with the class of the feminist who proposed it, or because feminism and anarchafeminists are seen to be a little bit embarassing to the movement/scene?

You say that you have been hanging off the scene for years but have never witnessed that level of sexism before, well anarchist women have been complaining about this sort of behaviour for years/decades/centuries and sexist behaviour behaviour whereby women are not listened to, not taken seriously, are assaulted, undermined and excluded, is endemic and someone who is anarchist and been around for years should acknowledge that, and take an active stance against it, not just come on an internet forum to snipe, which makes me doubt your motives.

In terms of this thread, manarchism and privilege, personally I don't like the terms, but I do understand what it's trying to express, that is the pervasiveness of sexism/racism/homophobia in society, the working class and the so called radical left.

 

[cesare]

You get all that? I don't think they're going to say the rest of AF is 'arrogant, racist and sexist' if AF decides privilege theory is not for them.

I agree. Sorry Nigel, I think that's too much of a leap.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I agree. Sorry Nigel, I think that's too much of a leap.

What else is that passage implying, other than that opposition to the language of privilege theory and therefore the theoretical framework it presents is in some important sense racist, sexist and arrogant? Why else include that argument?

Read the passage again. There's no other content to it. "Privilege theory" is described as something stemming from and widely adopted by oppressed groups and in particular political radicals amongst those groups. Those oppressed groups (or at least their political radicals) are treated as undifferentiated blocs. Class struggle groups, by contrast, are assigned whiteness and maleness. The right of people in class struggle groups to question privilege theory in good faith is thereby undermined. If it's "not for" you to disagree with (some? any?) black people or (some? any?) women about the language used to describe their oppression and therefore the theory underlying that language, what does it imply if you persist in doing just that?

 

[cesare]

What else is that passage implying, other than that opposition to the language of privilege theory and therefore the theoretical framework it presents is in some important sense racist, sexist and arrogant? Why else include that argument?

Read the passage again. There's no other content to it.

OK, I've found the link again and opened it up. Which part of it are you referring to in particular?

Edit: Oh hang on, you've added some stuff. I've printed it off and will read it again.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Isn’t it enough to talk about racism, sexism, homophobia etc. without having to call white, male and straight people something that offends them? If it’s just the terminology you object to, be aware that radical black activists, feminists, queer activists and disabled activists widely use the term privilege. Oppressed groups need to lead the struggles to end their oppressions, and that means these oppressed groups get to define the struggle and the terms we use to talk about it. It is, on one level, simply not up to class struggle groups made up of a majority of white males to tell people of colour and women what words are useful in the struggles against white supremacy and patriarchy. If you dislike the term but agree with the concept, then it would show practical solidarity to leave your personal discomfort out of the argument, accept that the terminology has been chosen, and start using the same term as those at the forefront of these struggles.

This is the key passage. Its premises are false, its method is guilt tripping, its implications are that disagreement with the language and framework of privilege theory are in some important but unspoken sense racist, sexist and arrogant.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Edit: Oh hang on, you've added some stuff. I've printed it off and will read it again.

Yeah, sorry, I was trying to make my point clearer. To add something further, I very much doubt if it's the conscious intention of the people writing the document to cast their opponents (if any) within the Anarchist Federation as a bunch of arrogant racists and sexists. I suspect it's more likely that in this passage they've simply borrowed in an unreflective way a very common set of rhetorical devices used within US radical liberalism which has that implication. And which is often used with significant and destructive effect in those circles.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Really interesting thread this. I think one of the problems that perennially pops up in Anarchist groupings (based partly on my own narrow experiences) is that of informal authority and informal heirachy, how in groups with no formal leadership there can emerge informal leadership structures and cliques that can be quite arbritrary and dangerous, as there is no means by which to check them because they formally don't exist. I don't think Anarchists are unique in this, but it's especially problematic for them coz of the egalitarian nature of Anarchist politics.

And if anything it's the reason why I'm scepitcal about Anarchist politics, because if you can't sort this out within their own organisations than how can you expect society itself to be run on these lines? Is it not better sometimes to have a formal authority that can be ignored, laws that are enforced selectively, rather than a formal type of absolute freedom that in practice gives way to much more direct forms of domination? I don't know the answer, and i'm probably not expressing myself very effectively, but that's really why I lost a lot of sympathy with Anarchism after my late teens.

And what worries me a lot of about this intersectionality stuff is how it will get applied within these sorts of informal heirchies to exclude opposition and close down democratic debate. Rather than it being something that can used to stop the "Very-Boring-Middle-Aged White-Man-Droning-On-And-On-Talking-Over-Everyone-At-Meetings" I suspect it'll do nothing of the sort. I suspect these very boring middle aged people will revel in the fact they've got a new type of dense political jargon they can use to undermine and bully people who haven't got degree in critical theory. In total abstraction there's a lot of merit to these idea's, but in practice I think it'll be totally appropriated by self-important arseholes can use to carry out their grudges and vendettas within their own tiny organisations.

Which seems to be how it works in the USA, and I'd be gutted if it gained prominence over here.

Then of course there's the wider retreat from class context to all of this, but I'll save my thoughts on that for another time.

 

[cesare]

This is the key passage. Its premises are false, its method is guilt tripping, its implications are that disagreement with the language and framework of privilege theory are in some important but unspoken sense racist, sexist and arrogant.

I've read it again. The way that I perceive what's written is something similar to how language has changed over the past 30 odd years. For example, 30 years ago it was normal to refer to black people as coloured. Now, it's not. Some people still persist in using "coloured" instead of "black". There's a whiff of casual racism and anachronism about that old usage, but not enough for the average person to accuse them of being racist because of using outdated terminology. That's my interpretation of what's being said in that passage. I'm not sure I agree, because (a) I'm not convinced that all of these alleged radical <whatever> activists are actually using the terminology as default; and (b) even if they are, it's by no means spread to normal language outside radical circles. It might do, in time. But until then I'm not going to lend it credence by making a huge fuss about failing to use the language being by default racist, sexist etc. It's too big a leap and not what was said.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

But until then I'm not going to lend it credence by making a huge fuss about failing to use the language being by default racist, sexist etc. It's too big a leap and not what was said.

It's not said explicitly. But what exactly does it imply about you and your point of view if it's "not for" you to disagree with these linguistic and theoretical points ascribed to black people and women (or black radicals and feminists, as so often there's a certain slippage between the two in the argument), and yet you insist on doing so anyway? At best that you are the kind of person who insists on calling people "coloured", to use your example, and at worst...

This is a form of rhetoric used by US radical liberals to delegitimise dissent. As I said above though, I suspect that this isn't a deliberate intention in the AFed context, so much as an ill-conceived borrowing of a common argument used in the American circles the writers are influenced by.

 

[cesare]

Yeah, sorry, I was trying to make my point clearer. To add something further, I very much doubt if it's the conscious intention of the people writing the document to cast their opponents (if any) within the Anarchist Federation as a bunch of arrogant racists and sexists. I suspect it's more likely that in this passage they've simply borrowed in an unreflective way a very common set of rhetorical devices used within US radical liberalism which has that implication. And which is often used with significant and destructive effect in those circles.

Yes, I agree.

 

[cesare]

It's not said explicitly. But what exactly does it imply about you and your point of view if it's "not for" you to disagree with these linguistic and theoretical points ascribed to black people and women (or black radicals and feminists, as so often there's a certain slippage between the two in the argument), and yet you insist on doing so anyway? At best that you are the kind of person who insists on calling people "coloured", to use your example, and at worst...

Yeah, but that assumes I give a fuck about what they think.

Sorry, a bit terse

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Yeah, but that assumes I give a fuck about what they think.

I think that the impact of this sort of rhetoric in US radical circles has been important enough that you'd end up giving a fuck quite quickly if it becomes established in these parts. It's less about what the person using the argument thinks and more the effect that such arguments have on debate in a wider milieu.