afronaut

We are indeed a house divided. But the division between race and race, class and class, will not be dissolved by massive infusions of brotherly sentiment. The division is not the result of bad sentiment and therefore will not be healed by rhetoric. Rather the division and the bad sentiments are both reflections of vast and growing inequalities in our socio-economic system - inequalities of wealth, of status, of education, of access to political power. Talk of brother hood and ‘tolerance’ (are we merely to 'tolerate’ one another?) might once have had a cooling effect, but increasingly it grates on the nerves. It evokes contempt not because the values of brotherhood are wrong - they are more important now than ever - but because it just does not correspond to the reality we see around us. And such talk does nothing to eliminate the inequalities that breed resentment and deep discontent. The same is true of most 'black power’ sloganeering, in which I detect powerful elements of conservatism. Leaving aside those extremists who call for violent revolution, the black power movement embraces a diversity of groups and ideologies. It contains a strong impulse toward withdrawal from social struggle and action, a retreat back into the ghetto, avoidance of contact with the white world. This impulse may, I fear, be strengthened by the assassination of Dr. King.

Often, saying “gentrification” is a way to avoid saying “capitalism.” Clowning white hipsters is cool (also – they aren’t always white, or hip), but it shouldn’t distract from the fact that the bigger enemy is the real estate industry, not to mention employers who don’t pay workers enough to make rent. Some extremely violent forms of gentrification won’t necessarily look like the stereotypical “artists with fixies and cold brew moving into the hood” narrative. What if we talked about new Chinese money pushing out poorer people of Asian descent in the San Gabriel Valley at the same time as we talk about Boyle Heights, for example? In economic terms the phenomenon might not be that different. There’s a danger of reinforcing existing forms of oppression and exploitation in the name of a preexisting community that supposedly overrides class divisions. 

“Bannon became fascinated with the collective power of the gamers who gathered on these sites”