Embodied Terror, Embodied Resistance

Today, in American imperialism, the commodity has reached its most grandiose historical manifestation (C.L.R. James)

I have been struggling to understand the incredible amount of pain, grief, sadness and anger (among other emotions) that seems to consume my days and even more so my nights. I want to honor the feelings that are so pronounced and raw. I also wish to speak to something that has helped me see things in a new light. I have been reading the work of Roberto Sirvent and Danny Haiphong. Specifically their book American Exceptionalism and American Innocence. Virtually every chapter/essay is a revelation for me in terms of understanding our current reality. I will now reflect on something that has come to light, in part, from their reading of history.

I was never aware of the geographical, and temporal contemporaneousness of the slave trade and the rise of Wall Street as a location. Wall Street was one of the original locations in which the actual Slave Trade Market was practiced. It was so important to me because of my desire to ‘link’, (connect), and create coherence between the many modes of oppression. This is important, in part, because how you understand the links will impact your strategy for resistance. One of the fundamental links to understand our historical crisis is made worse precisely because we have not understood a key element of the relation between Capital and White Supremacist thought. The best way to frame the place of White Supremacist thought in the United States concept is to understand the all encompassing ‘commodification’ of reality by the Capitalist system. What I mean to say, is that the United States of America views all people of color (and in a sense all “Others”) as property. This is the default designation given these communities. I don’t just mean this in a metaphorical or symbolic manner. I mean that literally. The system views all human persons deemed (by the system) as Non-White, and Non-Male as OBJECTS like a toaster, or television. The obvious example is the Dred Scott decision. But there are many other examples. To speak of how racism dehumanizes the person of color without understanding the ‘thingification” of the human person is to not fully grasp the depth of what is being done in this praxis. What racial discourses (precisely in its new Neoliberal iterations) fails to see is precisely how the “White” Gaze sees not the person of color as human person but, in fact precisely, sees them as an extension of the world of Objects. So that the fight against White Supremacist thinking /praxis is intimately linked to our survival as a species. This is especially true because of how Capitalism in creating deformed desires does not see creation as a ‘family member’ (To All My Relations) but merely as ‘an object’ to be exploited. The climate catastrophe is merely one effect of this profound misreading of reality. This pernicious and evil ideology (and all the praxis, institutions etc. that abet the creation, maintenance and perpetuation of this movement) are directed against all those designated as other. This includes all creation and all people of color. This will eventually include all people deemed not important for the accumulation of wealth. This should be a clarion call to all of our White Sister’s and Brother’s. It has been recently reaffirmed how the struggles of people of Color (or in some cases the Global South) are the proverbial ‘canary in the coalmine’. What happens to these communities will eventually happen to the vast majority of people on the planet.

There are many other oppressions that are part of the larger system(s) of injustice that keep people in power. What was truly important for me to see was how, even as people of various ‘marginalized communities’ continue to be treated as commodities. The system has become adept at placing people of these very marginalized communities in places of authority (perceived power) while not having to change the actual relations of power, and unjust structures. This move by the system to continue its barbaric practices has been termed by the brilliant author and professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor as a strategy of placing ‘Black Faces in High Places” (see her brilliant article by this title online in the Jacobin website!!). This strategy is so insidious it bears some closer examination.

I remember that from 1997-2002 Apple Computer Inc. began an advertising campaign entitled Think Different. It consisted of images of historical figures with the simple but powerful phrase “Think Different”. It claimed to be an homage to those who where able to ‘think outside the box’. According to the campaign it was a tribute to those iconic figures who were visionary in their perspective. The problem is that this ad campaign completely extracted the individuals from their social, historical, political, economic context. So this campaign ad allowed an image of Dr. King, or Muhammed Ali to be used in service of Capital accumulation. It showed Nelson Mandela (who, at the time was a member of the African National Congress) as someone whose life and values were in alignment with the values of Apple corporation and its founder Steve Jobs. They used Caesar Chavez (a Union Organizer/Leader!!) in their ad campaign. This was at the time when Apple was aggressively anti-union. Think of the absolute and utter disdain the corporation had for the humanity of these individuals! There entire life of struggle and all that they stood for was completely subsumed for the service of Profit.

One of the ways this understanding of the networking of oppression has been labeled is to speak of a racialized Capitalism. This is a wonderful term because it allows us to see that an element of White Supremacist ideology is intimately tied to the accumulation of wealth for the owning class. This might also help us understand the deep need to explain to our White Sister’s and Brother’s how they are exploited in a similar (NOT IDENTICAL!) manner. To the degree that Capital views all human labor (and all corporeal existence) as some(THING) to make profit from, it can continue to despoil our humanity and all of creation.

Part of addressing these issues is to see their interlocking character. It is truly impossible to be authentically Anti-Racist without being Anti-Capitalist. If you claim to be Anti-Capitalist and not be explicitly Anti-Racist (Anti-White Supremacist) then you do not have a grasp of either oppressive system. This would be true for other forms of oppression. (Example: Anti-Patriarchy etc.)

I wanted to end on a note that brought me some hope, I have heard this quote attributed to the brilliant Trinidadian Marxist C.L.R. James who I cited at the begining of this entry. James said that “All peoples are entangled in the net of the world market”. While this could be seen as a source of despair, I prefer to view it as a source of hope. For wherever you are, there, in some form is the enemy. But this also means we can join the struggle anywhere we find ourselves.”