Panthers: The Last Vanguard

    The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was, from approximately 1968 to 1980, the preeminent organization of the Black Freedom movement. Despite this it is nearly erased from most telling of the history of that time period, caricatured as an armed group of “reverse racist” fanatics to be feared by white America. The Black Panther Party was in reality a revolutionary community organization devoted to the empowerment of black and oppressed people in the United States and throughout the world. Since the Party's disbandment in 1980, no other organization or movement has yet emerged to carry on the revolutionary struggle. The Black Panther Party represented at the time a revolutionary vanguard not only of black communities, but (like the Communist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World before it) of the entire American proletariat.

     Though the Panthers stand as the latest episode in a legacy of revolutionary resistance to white supremacist colonization and slavery dating back to the slave revolts given a face by the iconic Nat Turner and including the legacies of Douglass, Tubman, Garvey, Parsons, and DuBois; the Panthers by their own admission were the result of a black generation brought alive by one towering figure in particular: Malcolm X. Though they espoused themselves a part of the then-dominant left tradition of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, it was the speeches and writings of Malcolm that were required reading for Party members and it was for him that the Panthers called themselves “the heirs of Malcolm.” The Panthers in essence represented a more Marxist version of Black Nationalism. Given the history of each of these as the two dominant paradigms of post-slavery black liberation in the US (as embodied by Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association on the one hand and the IWW, DuBois, Parsons, and the CPUSA on the other), the dynamic results of their synthesis should be unsurprising.

     Though the Panthers espoused an unwaveringly revolutionary vision and were often most characterized in the press by their firearms, the most crucial practice to the success of the Party was that of widespread community service operations. Most notable among these was the Free Breakfast for Children program, but a number of programs were run by the Party including Free Health Clinics (particularly vis-a-vis sickle cell anemia), Free Clothing exchanges, Free Busing to Prisons, and Free Legal Aid, in a addition to numerous community schools and literacy and political education programs for both children and adults. Though not every Chapter offered every program, committed community service was a universal tenant of Party work. These aided tremendously in the rise of the Panthers in that they lent them a credibility that had eluded other political groups. Community service demonstrated, perhaps most importantly, that the Panthers' first allegiance was first and foremost to the reality of conditions in the community and not to some outside ideological agenda.

     Far from diverting all the Party's energy into dead-end reformism or paternalistic charity, such a demonstration of on-the-ground commitment combined with explicitly revolutionary politics served not only to raise radical consciousness but also to greatly increase the membership and community support (that is to say, the operating capacity) of the Black Panther Party. Minister of Defense Huey Newton made the distinction that these programs actually were not revolutionary. They were “survival programs pending revolution... they do not change social conditions, but they are life-saving vehicles until conditions change.” He further stressed the particular significance of this approach to the black struggle: “The masses of Black people have always been deeply entrenched and involved in the basic necessities of life. They have not had time to abstract their situation.”

     To aid in the task of reaching such a community with the politics of revolution was the Black Panther Party's 10-Point Program. The Program was printed prominently in every edition of the Black Panther Intercommunal News Service, was widely distributed in leaflet form, and was memorized by every Panther-in-Training. Each point is accompanied by a brief elaboration, but the ten demands are:

1. We want freedom. We want the power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
2. We want full employment for our people.
3. We want an end to the robbery by the capitalist of our Black Community.
4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.
6. We want all black men to be exempt from military service.
7. We want an immediate end to the police brutality and murder of black people.
8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county, and city prisons and jails.
9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.

     Former Panther and current political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal writes that “while central to the Party, [the 10-Point Program] was not the ideology of the Party; it was more of an organizing tool. It was a way of getting folks to think about change, and it proposed solutions to problems faced by Black folks across the nation.”

     Point 6 came to take on greater significance within the Party as its internationalist consciousness grew with the escalation of American war in Vietnam. Like SNCC before it, the Black Panther Party had from its founding openly opposed the draft as well as the war. Over time, and as national liberation movements around the world began fighting to overthrow the old colonial governments, the Panthers began to see their struggles as one and the same. Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver wrote a piece for the Black Panther newspaper called “To My Black Brother in Vietnam” encouraging black soldiers to see the vietnamese as their “Brothers and Sisters who are fighting for their freedom” and to “Either quit the army, now, or start destroying it from the inside.... Stop killing the Vietnamese people. You need to start killing the racist pigs who are over there with you giving you orders.... Sabotage supplies and equipment, or turn them over to the Vietnamese people.” Beyond this, the Panthers proposed a “Pilots for Panthers” program where the NLF could turn over American POWs in exchange for incarcerated Panthers. Huey Newton once offered to send Black Panther volunteers to fight against the United States in Vietnam. Viet Cong Deputy Commander Nguyen Thi Dinh commented: “With profound gratitude, we take notice for your enthusiastic proposal; when necessary, we shall call for your volunteers to assist us.”

     One of the most blatant misconceptions about the Panthers was that this was a highly sexist and misogynist organization. While the Party was, to be sure, a product of the patriarchal society in which it arose, it was far less so than nearly any other left or revolutionary organization of the time. Like many other organizations in the Black Freedom movement, the majority of Black Panthers were women: 60% within a year of the Party's founding according to Chairman Bobby Seale. Additionally, and though it reads as arcane, the 7th of the Party's 8 Points of Attention (“Do not take liberties with women.”) helped forge an internal culture of some parity. Harlem Panther Afeni Shakur (Tupac's mother) recalled how her first encounter with the Panthers drove her to join: “It was the first time in my life that I ever met men who didn't abuse women. As simple as that. It had nothing to do with anything about political movements. It was just that never in my life had I met men who didn't abuse women, and who loved women because they were women and because they were people.” Again this is not to deny the existence of machismo among Panther men. Tarika Lewis, the first woman to join the BPP back when it only existed in Oakland, remarked that “When the guys came up to me and said 'I ain't gonna do what you tell me to do 'cause you a sister,' I invited 'em to come on out to the weapons range and I could outshoot 'em.” Other prominent Panther women included Communications Secretary Kathleen Cleaver who was the first woman to sit on the Central Committee and Elaine Brown who from 1974-77 served as Chairwoman of the Black Panther Party.

     The Black Panther Party was aptly referred to by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as the"greatest threat to the internal security of the country." The FBI's Counter Intelligence Program (more commonly referred to as COINTELPro) set out to curtail the influence of the left in general, but especially to crush the BPP with all vicious force and deceit. Through mass use of informants, infiltrators, and assassinations Hoover weakened the Party. But it took more than just targeting the Panthers. A 1969 edition of The Black Panther read “The Black Panther Party cannot be suppressed by the establishment and its racist pigs because the Party exists by the will of the people....” Sure enough, COINTELPro came to the conclusion that in order to neutralize the Panthers they had to neutralize the black community generally. This was the same time that crack cocaine emerged. This did irreparable damage to the Panthers' efforts; membership and cadre dwindled and then fizzled. In 1980, the Black Panther Intercommunal News Service was officially discontinued.

     There have been a few attempts to (mis)use the BPP's legacy in contemporary politics. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition PUSH appropriates the name of the Rainbow Coalition organized by martyred BPP Illinois State Chairman Fred Hampton. The Rainbow Coalition was a non-aggression pact between Chicago gangs facilitated by the Panthers and the Young Lords. Jesse Jackson's mock-up shares nothing but the name. The “New Black Panther Party” is a front for the Nation of Islam and has been widely denounced by former Panthers and even sued for use of the name by the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation.

     What has stuck of the Panthers has been in the form of struggle against the prison-industrial complex. Though they never meant to, the Panthers were forced by state repression to deal with the prison system on a nearly constant basis. There are still many many BPP and Black Liberation Army members in prison today, not the least of whom is Mumia Abu-Jamal. Martyrs like George and Jonathan Jackson pioneered theories of prison resistance. Angela Davis, though never a Party member, was often associated with the Panthers and is one of the world's foremost advocates of what she calls Abolition Democracy.

“The main function of the party is to awaken the people and to teach them 

the strategic method of resisting the power structure.” - Huey Newton

I Think of Myself as a Man: Liberalism and Intersectionality in “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner”

          Stanley Kramer's 1967 classic “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner” is one of the important american films dealing with racism. It left a lasting impact on the popular and political culture of its time much of which can still be felt today. A contemporary analysis of this movie may yield some interesting and useful insights into our current race politics. I contend that the film represented an important and deliberate step in the right direction for its time, but that it also can serve now to coddle and congratulate the new liberal racism of the so-called “post-civil rights” era. The news for contemporary viewers isn't all bad though, as the film uses the its cross-section of characters to explore the intersectional power dynamics of White Supremacy, Patriarchy, and Capitalism in a way that's subtle, but surprisingly clear if you look for it.

          “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?” is first and foremost about the character of Matt Drayton (a white 60-something liberal newspaper editor). It's secondary protagonist is his daughter's intended husband Dr. John Prentice (an accomplished black man whose story is one of professional ascent). The basic story is that Joanna Drayton and John Prentice (who've just fallen in love) go to the Drayton family home to break the news of their engagement and to ask for her parents' approval. Of course Matt and his wife Christina are each shocked at first. As the scenes progress Christina gets over it and Matt remains unsure. The Prentice family also arrive later, are shocked, and John's mother quickly gets over it. It boils down to mothers for it, fathers against it, and John unwilling to get married without Matt's approval. At the last minute, Matt has a change of heart and gives a rousing speech in which he approves of their love, and they all have dinner together, etc, etc.

Liberalism

          The fact that the story is set up to focus on these two kinds of men (white liberals and middle class blacks) can be seen as meaning a few things: a presentation of the “best” kind of black man allows for the deconstruction of the strict racial barriers that existed at that time; if it's ok for a white woman to marry an impressive middle class black man, then it means you can't be categorically against interracial marriage. This seems like a decent way to get the proverbial foot in the door to white consciousness in the short-term. But the flip side of this middle-class cherry-picking is that it doesn't disallow, in fact it fosters, the liberal racism of individual exceptions we see today. It allows whites to still hold people of color as a whole in contempt while considering some individuals exceptions if they play hard enough by the white rulebook.

          The most striking illustration of the difference in effect of this movie then from now is the John Prentice's references to difference and colorblindness. About half an hour in, John is explaining to Matt and Christina how he feels about Joanna. He talks about how unlike others she is and cites “It's not just that our color difference doesn't matter to her, it's that she doesn't seem to think there is any difference.” Now it's easy to imagine how useful this kind of thinking would be in an argument against de jure racial discrimination, and all credible science does bear out that there is negligible biological difference. But this simple attitude of praising erasure of difference obscures for liberals today that not only are there socio-cultural differences to be acknowledged like any others, but there are also differences of power and oppression that are the result of historical and continued white supremacy.

          Much later on, there is a scene which John says to his father, “...you think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man.” Now I'm not in a position to judge the commentary on black racial identity and consciousness here. But I do know that this statement, just like the first, serves to obscure real social differences. It further implies that black oppression is a function of how black people think of themselves, another lie of white supremacy.

          Whatever the unintended consequences, Kramer's film was undoubtedly a deliberate use of cinema as an instrument of social change. There are many elements of the movie that clearly address themselves to liberal white audiences of the time. A scene in which Christina asks Joanna if she and John have slept together reveals that they haven't because he wouldn't yet. Given the hyper-sexualization of black bodies, this an important counter measure. The very next scene directly addresses a rather more innocuous stereotype remarkably well:

          “You say they don't have any special sense of rhythm?” Matt asks.

          “Hahahaha that's right.” John replies good-naturedly.

          “But hell you can see it. You can't turn on a television set anywhere without seeing those kids dancing, and I say the colored kids are better than the white kids.”

          “But there's an explanation for that: it's our dancing, and it's our music. We brought it here. I mean you can do the Watusi but we are the Watusi, if you know what I mean.”

          Later that same scene, in what is almost a direct appeal to the conscience of liberal viewers, john says of Joanna, “She said 'my dad, my dad is a lifelong fighting liberal who loathes race prejudice and has spent his whole fighting against discrimination.' She said 'my parents, well they'll welcome you with open arms.' And I said 'oh I sure wanna meet them.'”

          The funniest character in the movie is Monsignor Ryan who serves both as mild comic relief and as the joyful conscience of the story. He is the only white character not to stammer and gawk uncomfortably upon finding out about the engagement and in fact quite enjoys the whole thing. Talking about interracial marriages he remarks that “strangely enough, they usually work out quite well – I don't know why. Maybe because it requires some special quality of effort, more consideration and compassion than most marriages seem to generate these days.” He tells Matt that the situation is “rather amusing, too, to see a broken down old phony liberal come face to face with his principles. Of course, I always have believed that in that fighting liberal facade there must be some sort of reactionary bigot trying to get out.” The content of what he says throughout is combined with an easygoing near-comical manner that would make it difficult not to receive what was said.

          Another very subtle tactic of the film is that it is made clear almost right away that the substance of both fathers' concerns are for the safety and future hardships for their children and potential grandchildren, not for the purity of their race or whatever. By making the reason so non-bigoted and sympathetic, the viewer who might actually feel uncomfortable with interracial relationships is allowed to feel that way within a comfortable and understandable rationale – leaving them open to hearing the Monsignor or Christina or Mrs. Prentice and being genuinely moved to a change of heart. It's a brilliant little cinematic bait-and-switch.

          The argument that finally convinces Matt to approve the marriage is made by Mrs. Prentice: “I believe those two young people need each other like they need the air to breathe in. Anybody can see that by just looking at them.... If you ever felt what my son feels for your daughter you've forgotten everything about it, my husband too. You knew once, but that was a long time ago. Now the two of you don't know. And the strange thing for your wife and me is that you don't even remember. If you did, how could you do what you are doing?” This is similar to things Christina, John, and the Monsignor say throughout having to do with John and Joanna's love being so powerful as to transcend racial barriers. This, like some of the other elements discussed, makes the interracial marriage pill potentially easier for white audiences to swallow. But it is also beside the point: social or legal barriers to interracial relationships would be wrong even if they just kinda liked each other a little.

Intersectionality

          My favorite moment in the whole movie is a scene in Matt's study where John is placing a phone call. He's glancing around the room and while dialing sees a framed picture of Franklin Roosevelt. A few seconds later he looks back at it with a look of much less than the worship one might expect. But for anyone looking it was a clear communication of the often forgotten fact that FDR wasn't nearly so good for black people as for white.

          A surprisingly accurate depiction of racial dynamics you encounter is the portrayal of the initial shock and discomfort of various whites to John. The first is Christina, who stammers conspicuously, is advised to sit down lest she faint, and asks “I suppose it would be alright if I said 'my goodness' wouldn't it?” Matt is a bit less dramatic but clearly becomes quite unsettled. It's difficult to describe, but the acting is superb all around.

          A major element of the film that's always just subdued is the politics of gender. On the one hand, the character of Joanna is shown as an object of the plot and is often kept out of the loop on things by everyone else. This is presumably for the protection of her character's Bambi-esque naivete. There is a moment during the final scene where Matt says, “This may be the last chance I'll ever have to tell you to do anything, so I'm telling you: shut up.” The implication here, given that she's 23, is that a father's right as parental dictator ends not when a daughter is of age, but when she is transferred by marriage to the possession of another man. There is also scene in which Mr. Prentice remarks on the age difference between John and Joanna that “women age faster than men.” What “age faster” really means of course is become supposedly undesirable to men sexually. And of course for a man in a patriarchal society to make the claim that men outlast women in sex appeal is a self-serving social illusion. Now it does take the two mothers significantly less time and effort than the fathers to accept the idea of their children marrying. It's tough to tell whether this is some comment on women's essential sentimentality. More likely it was just an interesting plot choice.

          Perhaps the most interesting and subversive aspect of “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner” is the character of Tilly, a black woman domestic worker in the Draytons' house. Though the viewer is not sure why, Tilly immediately reacts to John with tension and hostility. In their first encounter, Joanna asks Tilly to bring them some sandwiches on the terrace. Shortly after, Tilly states, “I don't care to see a member of my own race gettin' above hisself!” The most obvious meaning of this is that being involved with Joanna is John getting above himself, but I think there's also a division here between John and Tilly that has to do with that he's an upwardly mobile professional who she's asked to wait on the same way she does for the Draytons. In a scene on the terrace, Tilly serves coffee to Joanna, Christina, and John. When she gets to John she practically throws his cup across the table at him. Now this could just be an expression of any kind of anger, but I think it's not coincidental that the hostile act manifested itself as a resistance to the act of serving him in the same way as whites. This is a convergence of race and class politics. Tilly (in my interpretation) resents having to treat another black person in the same way she has to treat whites. She might view it as uppity or as a betrayal. Tilly's character is sadly underdeveloped and so we'll never know, but there's plenty of interesting speculation and interpretation to be had.

          There is a scene where Tilly confronts John, accusing him of being a smooth-talker and warning him not to harm Joanna etc. However this line comes right after unrelated dialogue and is followed by “and furthermore to that, you ain't even all that good lookin'!” This outburst of unrelated anger makes me think that she may not actually be angry for the reasons she articulates. There are of course a variety of pretty ridiculous class interactions between Tilly and the Draytons. Not a moment after they've finished arguing about John, Joanna asks Tilly, “What are we having for dinner tonight? Gotta make it something special.” The contrast between the tone of the two topics is strikingly offensive in a way that I'm not sure I know how to articulate. And near the end of the film, Matt calls Tilly into the room to hear his speech. He introduces her to Mr. and Mrs. Prentice “This is Miss Matilda Binks who's been a member of this family for 22 years.” I'm not sure if this is supposed to show how loving and inclusive they Draytons are, but it certainly doesn't.

          This brings us to the main event of the film: Spencer Tracy's (Matt's) climactic final speech:

“I admit that I hadn't considered it, hadn't even thought about it, but I know exactly how he feels about her and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that your son feels for my daughter that I didn't feel for Christina.... Where John made his mistake I think was in attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think because in the final analysis it doesn't matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel, for each other. And if it's half of what we felt, that's everything. As for you two and the problems you're going to have, they seem almost unimaginable, but you'll have no problem with me.... But you do know, I'm sure you know, what you're up against. There'll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say "screw all those people"!... But you're two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happened to have a pigmentation problem, and I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse, and that would be if – knowing what you two are and knowing what you two have and knowing what you two feel – you didn't get married.... Well, Tilly, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner?”

The Case for Libyan Revolution!

The following is a rebuttal of "The Case Against the Libyan Rebellion" by Will Richardson. Link:http://redsociology101.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/the-case-against-the-libyan-rebellion/

Basic Premises.

LIBYA IS PART OF THE ARAB SPRING. To deny this is comically stupid. It just so happened to happen at exactly the same by total fucking coincidence? Come off it...

QADAFI IS A DICTATOR. Unelected. To say he's a figurehead w/ no power is like saying the President of the US doesn't legislate, he just executes acts of Congress. This may be true on paper, but the reality is different. Qaddafi is clearly not Hitler. Whoever said that is a jackass. Abuses in Libya under the current regime are extensively documented by Al Jazeera (one of the best independent news sources in the world). CNN is a strawman. And the kneejerk reaction of the Stalinists, to say “if the bad guys say it it's bad then it must be good” is the logic of a toddler.

Responses to Will.

“I respond by saying if Qadaffi is a dictator than so in the Queen of England seeing as they occupy the same position in their societies.” No they don't occupy even remotely similar positions in society. Again, this is picture-book reasoning. The Queen of England has very little real power anymore. Qaddafi has significant power. No comparison. Also, the standard of living is beside the point as far as being a dictator or not. One can impose x,y, and z progressive policies and still be a dictator. These are different questions.

“There’s the other minor issue of using the Libyan monarchy flag as protest flag of the rebellion.” Libya's only ever had the so-called monarchist flag and Qaddafi's flag. Before that, the Italian colonial flag flew in Libya. So the flag of the monarchy is also the flag of independence as well as the only non-Qaddafi flag Libya's ever had. In any case I'm far less concerned with the flag than the real actions of people. A working class revolution could fly the American flag for all I care so long as their actions are good.

“Because of this situation [racism by NATO forces] as far as I’m concerned their free Libya and if I was in Libya i’d have to pick a gun up for the government, at least they don’t want me dead.” This gives in to the racist divide-and-conquer. Will, do you think the Libyan govt doesn't factor oppressed african minorities into the equation of their economy? All governments/industries use racism to create an extra-low wage sector of workers to provide cheap labor and undermine the wages of all workers. Racism is never an accident. If it's there it's because it's profitable to those in charge.

“Even under much more brutal resistance by the Tunisian, Bahrianian, and Egyptian government their people largely stayed peaceful and won so what made the Libyan protesters so different?” Pro-western dictators had to blue-ball their repression to a degree because brutality on their part undermined the US et al's ability to maintain support for them, politically. There may also have been uncertainty about how the Obama administration would react (that's purely speculation, though). Qaddafi (while plenty in bed with US, UK and France) wasn't so exclusively dependent on it that repression was too risky. Plus Qaddafi's more than a little bit crazy. Remember when he said the protesters were just students tripping on LSD from Al Qaeda? Lmfao!

“Its not about the working class anymore when It comes to building socialism." THE WORKING CLASS IS SOCIALISM, by definition. Rural workers, the unemployed, and those in the informal economy are all still workers; it's not just white men in construction or steel mills. And fyi, there has been incredible success of class-based movements of these sectors throughout the 3rd world, especially in Latin America.

“In Africa and through most of the world there is no traditional working class to speak of nor do people identify themselves based on that.” I assume that by “traditional” you mean factories, hard hats, etc. See above comment. As to “nor do people identify themselves based on that,” 1) I first have to question how you could possibly know that? 2) Even if that's true it's only partly relevant. People can be part of a class without “identifying” with that class or even knowing it. Lots of Americans don't think we even have classes – doesn't make it so. Classes exist objectively. Now in order to make revolution, we need to foster class consciousness. So if you're right, then it just means further action is needed to develop that consciousness. It doesn't mean we abandon the working class.

My Analysis.

All the Arab Spring revolts have been democratic political revolution not proletarian social revolution. As such, there has been some class collaboration w/ the bourgeoisie in every single one, especially early on. The question now is whether or not the proletarian forces can continue to wage class revolution. In Egypt they seem to be doing so in a way that's very exciting. In Egypt, the working class forces realized, to some degree, that through strikes and exercising their power at the point of production they brought down a dictator. So they don't need the bourgeois elements anymore. The tragedy (not that there's only one) of NATO intervention in Libya is that 1) They've managed to keep the revolutionary forces fighting militarily instead of economically, thereby keeping the working class rebels totally dependent on bourgeois “leaders” who can secure the aid of the west. 2) They've split the popular forces to some degree. At first, it was an Arab Spring revolt and it was the people v. the dictator. But now there's the specter of western imperialism to frighten some Libyans back into the arms of Qaddafi as the supposed lesser of two evils. Same way we get tricked into voting for Democrats cause we don't want Republicans to win.

Another thing: Qaddafi may even have great, panafricanist socialist intentions in his head – I don't think he does, but that's beside the point. Even if Qaddafi had genuinely good intentions, his efforts would suffer from a fatal flaw in his methods. This is the flaw of 20th century so-called socialist regimes the world over. It's the mistake made by apologists for the “communist” tyranny of the USSR, China, N. Korea, etc. A MINORITY CADRE CANNOT IMPOSE SOCIALISM FROM ABOVE. Marx wrote, “The emancipation of the working class must be the task of the working class itself.” And he was right about that. All efforts where a party or an individual seized state power and tried to whip the population into socialism inevitably end in horror. Socialism = democratic workers control over production. And it must be gotten through the struggle of revolutionary democratic workers organizations, not party elites. 

Fight to Win @ School of the Arts

I'm writing this because I would love nothing more than to see Brizard's offensive budget defeated. I was one of the main organizers of the SOTA Budget Protests in 2009. I'd like to share what I think can be learned from the '09 campaign so that the 2011 campaign can be better and can win.

On letter-writing, etc:

There's nothing wrong with writing letters, in fact it's good to do it. But it's not enough. The problem is not that the school board don't know it's wrong. They know it's wrong, they just have other priorities than your education (especially Brizard). So we can't convince or persuade our way out of these cuts. They have to be defeated politically, forced to back down. There has to be enough public pressure on them that it's bad for them to pass the cuts. This isn't easy to do, but it is possible.

On the question of a walkout:

I was one of those in favor of this back in '09 when it was discussed, but I want to discuss the question. If it's going to be done, it's got to be done big and with student unity on deciding to do it. No sense in half-ass walkouts, in fact they're dangerous. And if a walkout is done it must be done openly, not with fire alarms or other chaotic measures, but walking out resolutely in full view of everyone. Having said that, and maintaining that I think a walkout is a decent idea, i'd like to also say that there are plenty of alternative tactics to achieve the same goals: sit-ins, occupations, in-school actions, outside protests, etc. Since it seems like the biggest concern is that walking out of classes we're trying to save sends the wrong message, then do the opposite: stay in and refuse to leave. The same effects are had: media attention, confrontation, showing students are bold and powerful.

On student organization:

In 2009, SOTA students started a movement to stop the budget cuts to our school. We ran a great campaign, but we didn't win. And the next fall, the issue was dead: no one was keeping up the fight. Now more cuts are threatening and SOTA students are little better off than we were in '09. We didn't build a student organization that could keep the fight going. Now the '09 protests did have an organization: it consisted of myself, Katy Rebholz, Megan Gilfoy, and Aleigha Spinks. Later we brought in Peter Balonon-Rosen and Chelsea DeBaise (the then-incoming Student Government Pres and VP). And we held 2 or 3 meetings where over a hundred students packed into rooms to semi-chaotically discuss plans. Now we did really great stuff with that system, but there were some problems with it:

First, it was basically run by 4 people. We had to do it this way because the alternative was to just gather everybody together and hope a plan emerged from the noise. There was no process for involving lots of students democratically and still being able to function. The choice was do it ourselves or it doesn't get done, so we did it. But what was needed was a democratic organization capable of running a large-scale, long-term campaign.

The other reason a large democratic organization is needed is to decide tactical questions like the walkout. In '09 the 4 of us had decided to do it and then 2 of us decided against it and we cancelled it. But something like that really should be decided by the whole group (or as close as possible). This would help keep students united, whatever the decision: if we all made the decision then we're all together on it.

Now the Student Government is elected by students and that's democratic in a way, but we all know that those elections are about popularity, etc. There are lots of reasons for this. I'd like to mention a few.

The Student Government isn't elected based on who can really “get the job done” because there is no job description either in writing or in practice. So without any other criteria, students just choose their generally favorite people and, as we all know, nothing happens.

SOTA Student Government consists of 4 people: President, VP, Secretary, and Treasurer. And only the Pres and VP can vote on School-Based Planning (where there's some real power). There is a structural problem here: no 2 people, no matter how committed or well-chosen could possibly represent the whole student body. Now there is a section in the Student Government Constitution that calls for a Student Congress with 4 student representatives from each grade level. To my knowledge, this Student Congress has not been a reality for some time (if ever). This is understandable, though. Said congress is given no real power and unless there is clear work to be done, then you either get nobody (like at SOTA) or some kids who like to play politician (like most college student governments).

I have some ideas to propose for discussion:

A democratic student organization is necessary to fight for the interests of students. This could mean starting one from scratch or it could mean rehabilitating the Student Congress section of Student Government; doesn't really matter – whichever works. It could be called Student Government, Student Congress, Student Union; again name doesn't matter – whatever works. What does matter is that it involve as many students as possible in the decisions affecting the school, that it make these decisions democratically, and that student decisions are final (no administration interference).

The next question then is what real power would this organization have? Well there are two kinds of power to talk about here: institutional power (getting voting seats on school-based planning, etc) and people power (the power of students protesting, writing, organizing, etc). I think that an organization like this (especially now) could be a way to channel the amazing energy of students into a way to effectively use the people power of students to fight against budget cuts (or any other future threats to students). Such an organization should also demand institutional power.

Questions about the specific structure of a Student Organization must of course be decided, not by me but by current students themselves. But i'll throw out some ideas/suggestions. The way the Congress is supposed to work (if I remember it right) is that 4 students are elected from each grade in much the same way as Pres, VP, etc. This could work, but I think I have a better idea:

• Each arts class could elect one student representative. So you'd have a Freshman Dance Representative and a Junior Tech Representative, etc. This way the elections are small scale, easy to manage, and much more specific. Each class would also be able to pick a new representative at any time.
• 4 grade levels times 7 departments makes a 28-person Congress (or whatever it's called) that can easily decide things and still keep in touch with the whole student body class-by-class.
• That 28-person body could pick 4 or 5 people to really run all the detailed stuff (like Katy, Megan, Aleigha, and I did) but they would be responsible to the decisions of the 28 and through them the whole school.

This organization, whatever its specific form, should establish a working relationship with the Rochester Teachers Association (RTA) and the Board of Education Non-Teaching Employees (BENTE) as well as other unions and community groups. Only by students uniting with teachers and workers as allies can we hope to really beat Brizard and the threat he represents.

To Victory,

Crescenzo Scipione

Class of '09

Juliet on the Subway

So I was on the subway on my way to school today and this woman sits down two seats away from me. She's about my age. She wasn't beautiful per se – more like strikingly pretty. She wore black mocassin-style slip on shoes, medium dark blue jeans, and a black peacoat. She was white but her skin wasn't pale or tanned; kind of in the middle. She had gorgeous dark hair with bangs on one side of her head and a medium thick braid on the other. She wore a nose ring and had soft but not at all immature facial features. She began looking rather intently at some point behind me over my left shoulder. It was when she did this that I was able to notice her eyes. It seemed in this instant as though her eyes were wide and her pupils deep and near black like a well or an ocean, but not in the least bit alarming or threatening. Quite the opposite, they seemed oddly hypnotic and entrancing, like someone perceiving something profound on a level I could not. She later looked down at her right hand as if actually looking for something. I saw she wore a silver ring with an unobtrusive celtic design. She also wore sparkling pink nail polish which though in definite contrast with her otherwise very aesthetically dark appearance, was not in conflict with it. Rather the visual effect of the pink was accentuated in a gentle but definite way by its contrast to all the black.

All this I gathered through a series of furtive glances. I was slightly enthralled by this woman, but wanted nothing less than to creep her out or make her uncomfortable. In order to observe her without disturbing her, I turned to face the window on the opposite side of the subway car and put my hood up, feigning sleep or something. I watched her reflection in the window. I watched her face almost exclusively because I had been afraid to really look at her face before lest she notice. Looking at her face, I began to examine her cheek. (In writing this, it is very frustrating that there is not a verb that accurately describes the way in which I was looking at her. 'Looking' just doesn't do it justice, 'examining' is far to clinical and scientific, 'noticing' implies a suddenness, 'observing' implies active behavior on the part of the observed, and 'staring' carries a dumb gawking connotation. I was watching her in the way that one looks at a painting or a sculpture in a great museum; there is no activity, it's not scientific, it is a way of looking at something in order to really absorb the aesthetic essence of what is being observed and possibly extrapolate meaning.) Her cheek was beautiful. It was the kind of cheek you touch softly with your hand in a moment of peace, happiness, romance, sadness, silence, or reassurance. I was reminded of the line from Romeo and Juliet where Romeo watches Juliet unseen and muses that “The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars / As daylight doth a lamp” and then wishes to be her glove because it got to touch her cheek. I decided this expression was a bit of a cliché and conveyed a longing for Juliet that I didn't feel for this woman. Besides it was not the brightness of this woman's cheek that struck me – it was its softness.

As I looked at her in the window, I began to notice the expressions passing over her face. She seemed upset, something was wrong, was bothering her. This manifested in a soft furrowing of her eyebrows and a sadness in her eyes. After a few moments of having noticed her unhappiness, I watched her try to hold her feelings in, to not show them on her face. This was several times followed by renewed sadness and a movement of her lips that indicated wrestling with sorrow, but not quivering of the injured toddler variety. This seemed to mean that not only was something upsetting her, but it had happened recently and it wasn't something trivial. It was also not sadness mixed with any stress (of the just-got-fired variety) or any urgency or disbelief (like after a sudden break up), she seemed to have no trouble at all in accepting the fact of whatever it was that was upsetting her – it just made her very sad. She also didn't seem in any danger of crying, she seemed in more natural control than that.

After a while outward sadness seemed to subside, leaving her looking wistful (not sure if that's quite the right word). She stared off like you do on the subway, leaning her cheek gently on her right hand. I was reminded once again, this time more strongly, of Romeo's musings about Juliet's cheek. “See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! / O, that I were a glove upon that hand, / That I might touch that cheek!” Again, Shakespeare's words did not quite describe what I felt. Romeo's desire is active, forceful, passionate (in the classic sense of being both sexual and emotional), and covetous of Juliet. What I felt was not desire, really, nor even attraction in the usual sense. Rather, I felt a quiet gentle longing for what it would be like to touch the cheek of this beautifully soft woman, without having any real ambition to do so.

What is interesting about this experience, and to me hopeful and self-affirming, is that this entire time on the subway was devoid of any sexual or predatory desire. It is extremely easy for me as a man to fall into the trap of sexualizing all attraction, and then of allowing that lasciviousness to transmute itself into predatory thoughts and impulses (and for too many, actions). I've been incredibly in love during my short lifetime, but not recently. It's been a long time since i've remembered feeling feelings for women that weren't at least a little bit sexualized. And i'm not saying sex is bad, but it can sully the emotional aspect, in my experience. I'm also not saying I “fell in love” with this woman on the subway, but it was truly lovely to feel the way that I did for that 9-stop train ride.

To add the explicitly political aspect of this experience (because I just can't resist doing so), two things occur to me about the social functioning of patriarchy that I see in this experience. The first is, as I just talked a bit about, male socialization includes an incredible emphasis on the sexual and almost total de-emphasis of the emotional. This can lead to sexuality as something that's detached, impersonal (not meaning casual, meaning isolated), and potentially predatory and violent. The second thing is of course the result of that fact on a social scale: a society in which women are (legitimately) afraid of men because men can have sexually predatory tendencies. Now because its important for men (myself and any men who may read this) to view feminist liberation in terms of self-liberation not altruistic “helping” of women, I point out that one result of this that affects men is that this fear women legitimately have of men is a barrier in any meaningful relationship from colleague to friend to lover. It also defines certain social conventions accordingly. The example of this that I think is illustrated by my above story is the fact that actually talking to her or approaching her was out of the question from the word go. I didn't even once seriously consider in any way approaching her because I have some sense of how incredibly creepy that would have been. However I submit that the creepiness of approaching a strange woman on the subway is only the result of a patriarchal culture and the ways in which women have been forced to adapt. The dream then is a world, a culture in which men (should such a category persist) have so proven themselves safe and trustworthy that it can be normal and acceptable for anyone to approach anyone else for whatever reason, without it being threatening. After all, why shouldn't we talk to strangers?

White Privilege is a Bong

So i got onto the elevator of my building to go downstairs to buy some food earlier today. On the way down, the elevator stops and on walks my roommate, two building managers, and two policemen. One of the cops was holding my roommate's bong. I started to greet my roommate and the building managers as they entered the elevator, but saw the cops with the bong and stopped mid-sentence, deciding that this was a situation in which it would be best to remain silent. After a few moments, though, the officers and managers started joking about bongs and the laws around drug paraphernalia.

As they were joking, a few things became clear to me. First, my roommate was not under arrest nor was he going to be. Second, that the bong was being confiscated not by the police, but by the building managers for violation of the building's drug policy. Third, that the building was actually going to allow my roommate to call his father and have him come pick up the bong. Fourth, that this would not be happening if my roommate wasn't white.

Several minutes later, my roommate came back upstairs and explained that the whole thing happened because my other roommate (who happens to have brown skin) had apparently stolen the bong along with some other items and (i assume based on the fact that it was recovered) taken them to some room on a different floor. Now i have no idea how much of whatever side of the story is true. Obviously stealing people's shit (if that's what happened) is fucked up. But let's think about how much privilege you'd have to have just to go to the authorities because someone stole your illegal drug paraphernalia and you'd like them to get it back for you!

In New York State, you can do up to a year in prison or a $1000 fine for first time possession of paraphernalia (Class A Misdemeanor) as defined by Section 220.50 of the New York State Penal Code. Second time, it's a Class D Felony.

Now i think it's safe to assume that a person of color would not volunteer self-incriminating information this way (for good reason). Beyond that, I would never think of doing that and i've had white privilege all my life. So this gets to another contributing factor: the privilege of class (or at least wealth). Now my white roommate comes from a rich Long Island family and his father is a business owner of some kind: an actual member of the capitalist class. So this kid's dumbassness isn't just because of the psychology of his white privilege, but the psychology of his class privilege. (I'm afraid i can't really analyze this kind of class privilege very well because i don't have it, and i don't really know many people who do.)

I think we need to recognize in this particular example that my white roommate's behavior (enabled by privilege) is not good or smart behavior, regardless of one's privilege or lack of same. My white roommate's privilege only allowed him to act a fool. Now granted, it turned out alright for him. His privilege paid up. But there was and never is any guarantee of this. All it would've taken was for one of those cops to be in a shitty mood for my white roommate to get booked.

I think this story is an interesting example of the ways in which White Privilege and White Supremacy operate and and of how psychological, individual and institutional forces interact to reinforce Whiteness.

The first step is the individual psychological: the rich white kid makes the dumbass move that could've landed him in jail because he feels safe, he feels like he can, like he's entitled to.

The second is of course the police. Now in reality, the reason the cops let him off the hook was likely not due to macro institutional forces such as coercion by superiors, monetary incentives, etc. What probably happened is that the two men decided that this wasn't really all that serious, it wasn't worth their trouble, boys will be boys, etc. But we all know that even if it's individually motivated, police racism is still institutional racism because the cop is not just another man, he's a man with a badge and a gun and the full backing of a whole host of government institutions.