Sex, Race and War - MORE

Darling, Rady

As you can imagine, I LOVE and AGREE with what you have written here.

I am trying to get an article of mine on Netiquette posted on opednews, without success for reasons no one seems to understand. Some of it is already quoted by you here in your bravissima article and here is some more of what I say in Netiquette: White people need first to acknowledge our racism and then make a commitment to unlearning our racism. "Understanding racism as a system of advantage that structurally benefits Whites and disadvantages people of color on the basis of group membership threatens not only beliefs about society but also beliefs about one's own life accomplishments.... People usually think of racism as the prejudiced behaviors of individuals rather than as an institutionalized system of advantage benefiting Whites." Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria (Basic Books, 1997, Beverly Daniel Tatum)

Men need first to acknowledge sexism in themselves and them make a commitment to stopping it, unlearning it. Women have also internalized this oppression. We are all on a different part of the grid, no matter how hard we have worked on this. TATUM'S QUOTE ABOUT RACISM IS TRUE ABOUT SEXISM TOO, SUBSTITUTING GENDER FOR RACE. Sexism hurts men too. However,men also profit from their sexism and misogyny.

by Sheila Parks (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 18 comments) on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 8:12:42 PM
 

Sex, Race and War - MORE

I want to sign my name to the above comment. It was in the preview, but not here, I have noticed.

Sheila Parks, Ed.D.

by Sheila Parks (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 18 comments) on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 8:45:30 PM
 

Commit to Unlearn the "Isms"

Sheila ~ your continual clarity on these issues is a source of constant inspiration to me.

Hopefully, your voice, mine, or someone's, will turn on a lightbulb in the brains of some of our comrades.

Together, we can win.

by Rady Ananda (95 articles, 245 quicklinks, 19 diaries, 693 comments) on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 9:38:36 PM
 

Thank you, Rady.

I've been having great difficulty trying to understand why so many people who I know to be peace activists, intend to vote for one of the three pro-war candidates.

Now I'm beginning to understand that war isn't so bad if you consider that more than 95% of the people killed in modern warfare are women, children, the elderly, and people of color. For those concerned with equality, war is good because it doesn't discriminate -- war is an equal opportunity destroyer.

And then if the war is carried out by a woman or a person of color, genocide can actually be a positive force for social good.

Is that the thinking, or am I still misunderstanding something?

You see, to me, the fact that no matter which of the three major party candidates is elected, the crimes against humanity in Afghanistan and Iraq will continue, is actually important. It's an issue. In my mind it overrides all other issues. I don't really think that Margaret Thatcher or Idi Amin brought about positive social change by being important and powerful just because one was female and the other was black.

You cannot stop the war by voting for war. All three candidates are committed to continuing the war, so I will not vote because I want the war to stop. I'm certainly not going to vote my sex or skin color if it means that I'm voting for crimes against humanity. I don't think my sex or skin color is more important than the sex and skin color of the millions who will continue to be tortured and killed needlessly just because Americans are more concerned about personal advancement and party politics than about peace.

If another country had as narrow a range of major party candidates as we have, we'd say they weren't a democratic country. All three of our candidates are pro-war. So war becomes a non-issue and people ignore the elephant in the room and argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Peace is not a chromosome or a quantity of melanin. Peace will only come about when people stop trying to advance themselves and their own kind (capitalism and tribalism) and start to feel empathy for the innocent victims of torture and genocide no matter who they are, where they are, or what their sex, skin color, religion, or other potentially discriminatory category may appear to be.

And from what I can see, that day may not be near at hand.

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 29 quicklinks, 77 diaries, 978 comments) on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 5:39:17 AM
 

Tokenism

I suspect this is the sole reason we are offered Clinton and Obama:

And then if the war is carried out by a woman or a person of color, genocide can actually be a positive force for social good.

If a woman or a black male leads the evil empire, then imperialism can't be all that bad, eh? 

If our Secretary of State is a black female, then it doesn't matter that she lied about weapons of mass destruction and helped lead us into an illegal war of aggression to steal the resources of another nation, right?

No, tokenism does not fool us; an evil policy is an evil policy no matter the "chromosome or quantity of melanin"...

I especially love how you worded this:

Peace is not a chromosome or a quantity of melanin. Peace will only come about when people stop trying to advance themselves and their own kind (capitalism and tribalism) and start to feel empathy for the innocent victims of torture and genocide no matter who they are, where they are, or what their sex, skin color, religion, or other potentially discriminatory category may appear to be.  

Thanks for your work on behalf of all people everywhere, Mark.

by Rady Ananda (95 articles, 245 quicklinks, 19 diaries, 693 comments) on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 8:45:56 AM
 

Yes

I'm with you

Restoration of the Constitution must come first.

Slide to fascism must be ended.

Then  essayists will have freedom and time to split hairs

by abacus (2 articles, 2 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 57 comments) on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 2:14:34 PM
 

Not getting it - still

These are not marginal issues.  Oppression is the cause of all conflict, and it is driven by lust for wealth and power.  Oppression is what the democracy movement seeks to end.  It cannot be relegated to "later." 

Later is the promise to be broken in the future.  Later is the lie on the lips of the enemy within.

The inanity of marginalizing oppression in pursuit of peace exemplifies why some can never lead a successful movement for democracy; they just don't get it.

by Rady Ananda (95 articles, 245 quicklinks, 19 diaries, 693 comments) on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 3:09:47 PM
 

Constitution first

The Constitution arose from the fight against oppression.

The Constitution is our process for fighting oppression, for peace and justice, at home and abroad

Academic arguments willl not stop the slide to fascism.

First things first.

Restore habeas corpus.

Then argue whether chicken or egg came first. 

by abacus (2 articles, 2 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 57 comments) on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 3:24:09 PM
 

SEXUAL EQUALITY VS RADICAL FEMINISM

To do justice in rebuttal of Rady Ananda's "Sex, Race and War" would take nothing less than a full book, examining the true causes of the twentieth century wars, class structure in a capitalist society, the role sexism and racism play in maintaining that structure, and detailing various macro-economic theories and theories of value. However, this being a comment, and this argument having been put to pasture for many years now, let's dispatch it with UPS overnight urgency.

There has always been a tendency in the general public to confuse the two concepts of sexual equality and radical feminist ideology. The first means simply that males and females are to be treated alike under the law, and that women should receive equal pay and opportunity in employment for equal work with men. The proposed Equal Rights Amendment was the hallmark of the sexual equality movement.

Out of the sexual equality movement arose a group of political theorists that claimed that Karl Marx was wrong in concluding that class structure was at the basis of human alienation, and that more specifically the class structure of capitalism led inevitably to wars for the redistribution of markets and for natural resources. This group of theorists was termed radical feminists, because they saw the division between the sexes as the root cause of human alienation and the patriarchal structure of society as the root cause of all war throughout humankind's history. Their remedy lay in not only a matriarchal society, but a society in which the female is freed from the entire sexual process: no need for sex for procreation, only recreation; test tube babies; artificial wombs; and ultimately motherless births. They saw a technological future that would free the female from her sexual identity in so far as it required a male mate and giving birth for a child.

Through modern divorce laws, this agenda has largely come true. With no fault divorce, and ex parte domestic violence injunctions, any good lawyer for a wife should emerge with the family home, vehicle, children, and substantial support payments without the father ever having had the benefit of notice that he was being divorced.  Once he finally gets a hearing, the court usually decides that if the current situation is working, there is no need to change it, whether or not the husband was in fact guilty of the original charge of battering (a nonconsensual touch).  The modern male has little more rights than did the male slave of the 18th century: his family can be ripped away from him without due process and he can be placed into indentured servitude for 18-21 years, even if the former wife continually violates what little visitation he might be given in the final judgment of divorce, and even if it turns out the husband is not the father. No court will incarcerate the primary custodian on a contempt charge, nor change the amount of support paid allegedly on behalf of the children. Nor does any court or agency monitor whether child support payments are actually used to support the children.

Whereas Marx saw sexism and racism as tools the ruling class used to divide the working class, radical feminists saw sexism and racism as the fundamental cause of mankind's ills. For Marx, remove the ownership of private property by individuals or corporations and replace it with public ownership in, for instance, the form of elected CEO's, and the endless wars for markets and resources would end, along with the boom and bust crisis centered economies of capitalist countries. In forging the social movement capable of creating such radical change, the working class would necessarily overcome the racism and sexism that had formerly been used to divide it.

To one extent or another, virtually all industrialized countries have become partially socialist.  They control their economies through tax subsidies, partial nationalizations, direct governmental intervention, wage and price controls, etc...  But none has gone so far as to eliminate an "owning class." Hence, we are all left with an inability to plan a "green" economy, based upon the consent of the workers who will build that economy. And the world's economies are still based upon the need to profit more than a competitor-- decreasing wages, increasing the speed of the "assembly line" (two bread winners in every family now to make what one made post WWII), and decreasing value in every product (human effort plus cost of materials). This loss of value can be seen in the United States by the fact that most employees produce nothing. They move paperwork, or serve in the tertiary sector.

In fact, the U.S., as the most advanced industrial state in the world, has nearly reached the point where Marx foresaw communism able to exist. Without the capitalist system forming our entire infrastructure, we are in a position to feed, shelter and clothe ourselves with local resources, severely curtailing the use of fossil fuels. Additionally, with the exception of our high technology infrastructure, almost everything we could possibly need can be produced at the local level if the land were not bound up in unproductive, "no trespassing" parcels, owned by who knows what governmental or corporate agency. As producers of commodities with value, we have only a handful of people at work. The rest have been given busy work, shuffling papers over which corporation gets this and that, etc., or in prison, or held in failing schools and colleges until they enter the work force in their late twenties. If we shared the work, and worked only to meet our needs, and those of developing nations, we might find ourselves with a two day work week instead of the mad scramble forced upon us now. Our time could be devoted to science, literature and the arts, and most importantly, to bringing prosperity to the developing world.

On the other hand, the radical feminist concludes that economics have nothing to do with war. Rather, the fundamental schism in society is between Man and Woman. Or White Man and any other color of Man or Woman. Of course, historically, the white male is a late arrival. The Native American tribes engaged in war without any help from the White Man. So too the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Israelites, the Muslims, etc...  And in many of these cultures, not only did females at times rule, and rule ruthlessly, but were often in charge of the torture of captives, which they apparently, thoroughly enjoyed.

Not only does history not bear out the radical feminist ideology, but that ideology offers us no concrete analysis of exactly how replacing male rulers with female rulers is going to change the underlying economic activity that brings war upon us and the family of nations. In fact, recent studies regarding spousal abuse, which studies are ignored by the MSM, where you can daily watch women hitting men on prime time, have found that women tend to resort to violence first and more frequently than do men.  As one of the attorneys who helped found the battered wife defense, raising it for the first time in U.S. history in a lesbian marriage, I was shocked at the telephone calls I received from women's organizations requesting that I keep the case out of the news. Where I had expected resounding support, I found only the deep desire to keep female battering a closely held secret.

It is true that once the male strikes back, he is more likely to injure the female due to superior size, but on the other hand, the female is more likely to resort to the use of weapons.

Once the darling of the media as I became an expert on the battered wife syndrome, appearing on various nationally syndicated talk shows and always the go to attorney for local issues, as I began to read about the censored studies and to mention that everybody needs to stop hitting before we can expect only a specific segment of our society to stop, I soon had no currency with the airwaves. As Fox Mulder might say, "The truth is out there.”  Unfortunately, the women's movement, and the MSM, wants to make sure that no one knows it.

But I must conclude that both Ms. Ananda and the subject of her criticism are partly right. The rise of feminism, and the left's failure to take it seriously, in the late sixties and early seventies, is one of the primary reasons the coalition fell apart. It, of course, did not help that the FBI managed to assassinate some thirty leaders of the Black Panthers in 1969, and the movement ignored them too. (This conspiracy is well documented in the decision of a federal appellate court, the citation of which I forget, but it can probably easily be found by looking in Words and Phrases for Mark Clark and Fred Hampton in the Fed Second Edition). This time the government has prepared for any movement like the sixty's movement, and if the progressive people of America are to have any chance of staying unified, we must crush all of the techniques of the past used to separate us. Sexism and racism are two of the major thrusts that will be used. We must abandon loyalties to sex and race and understand that our oppression comes from a system. That means that women cannot hide the fact the divorce laws are unfair, and that men cannot hide from the fact they exercise unjustly more power than women. And all people must recognize that racism and sexism is institutional. You cannot just change minds. You must change institutions.

by W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 283 comments) on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 7:55:16 PM
 

No way to reach you privately

WML ~ I want to give your careful thoughts proper due consideration and response; and will respond more fully ... but I cannot spare the time right now.  

Overall, I have not been convinced of any error in my thinking.  My theme still stands. 

When a SWM says that issues of race and gender equality need to be put aside while we work for peace, my alarms go off.  Oh, here we go again.  SWM deciding the agenda, thereby insulating his position of authority and dominance.   

Anecdotal evidence suggesting women are just as violent as men does not bear out in the crime and driving statistics. if you have sources to refer to me, I would gladly read them and - if true - would undergo a huge paradigm shift.  

I very much want to study your take on economic constructs - I've been studying recent books; and did take those 3 college econ courses, which included portions of Marx' thought. I'm still chewing over what I've learned so far, but haven't clarified my dawning conclusions.  

However you want to label my ideas (and btw I don't agree with the label based on your definition), there can be no denying the fact that race and gender divisions reinforce the war machine which SWM progressives seek to stop.  

If SWMs refuse women and people of color at the table, helping decide how to address the war machine, (and other frightening issues we face) - and since this has been the case for the past 400 years (at least) in the US, then, as Marie Wilson said, women (and people of color) not being at the table IS THE PROBLEM.

As MLK said, it is usually those on the margin who provide the solution. of course he said it more eloquently... I don't have the link handy. 

Anyway, I'll try to get back to you quickly... but it won't be for at least a few days.

by Rady Ananda (95 articles, 245 quicklinks, 19 diaries, 693 comments) on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 1:21:22 AM
 

Men Explain Things to Me: Facts don't get in their way

Mark ~ you (and some of the other posters above) go off on so many tangents that have absolutely nothing to do with my theme; you assert misstatements about what I said, and what Brad meant, that it would take me hours pointing out how many ways these criticisms don't apply.  It's like no one here, so far, understands debate.

There are a few sentences that go directly to my theme - and I responded to them.  

Rather than wasting hours trying to teach reading and focus skills, let me offer this, a wonderful piece by Rebecca Solnit:

Rebecca Solnit humorously and sometimes soberly asseses the annoyances and dangers of a men-on-top world. Being told that, categorically, he knows what he's talking about and she doesn't, however minor a part of any given conversation, perpetuates the ugliness of this world and holds back its light.  

She makes the same point my article makes:  yes, the ugliness in the world can be laid at the feet of those who assert a hierarchical preeminence over others.

And btw Mark ~ your comments on this piece absolutely contradict your past reasonings on sexism.  I'm baffled by your flip flop. 

by Rady Ananda (95 articles, 245 quicklinks, 19 diaries, 693 comments) on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 4:55:11 PM
 

Alice Walker Revisited

It is beyond me how Rady has the patience to give Feminism/Sexism/Misogyny 101 so many times.

I do not. And I am much more interested in talking with women than men, who are the oppressors and have white male privilege and want to keep it.

Alice Walker said to men: The only thing I want you to respond, when I am talking about women and sexism and misogyny is: I am listening.

Sheila Parks says to white men: The only thing I want you to respond, when I am talking about women and sexism and misogyny is : I am listening.

You can defend your entitlement and white male privilege from now until the end of the world.

You get it. You don't want to give up your white male privilege. You like it and will do anything to defend it and keep it.

Sheila Parks

by Sheila Parks (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 18 comments) on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 9:30:50 PM