kris the hooman

A Critique of the Western Left

The Western Left has been marred by infighting in recent years, effectively crippling any capacity it has to fight back against the vicious capitalist system it rightfully opposes.

In my eyes, I see two main contributing factors to the general incompetency of the Left in the Western world. Infighting and ineffective campaigning.

Infighting between sects within the left along niche ideological lines stunts its ability to grow its membership and influence by making the movement look irrelevant, hostile, and elitist. The right isn't divided along small ideological lines. They can and will cooperate to spread their collective hateful ideologies. To combat this effectively, we need to put our differences aside and unite along our common enemy: the capitalist system. Only when the abolition of capitalism has been undertaken can we afford to disagree on minor policy and theoretical differences.

Secondly, Leftist campaigning is so focused on ideological niches that it no longer appeals to the working people. The average worker is not concerned about who Gonzalo was. They are too busy worrying about food, about rent, about utilities and education, and safety. We need to campaign issues that are affecting the people the most. We NEED to appeal to the masses and embrace left-wing populism to garner the popular support needed to oppose fascism if we want any chance of facilitating positive and lasting change.

We have a common enemy, and we must not fight each other. Instead, we must work together for the good of the people and for the good of the planet.

By Che Gossett

It is rather convenient for queer and/or trans counter hirstory to be erased, depoliticized and co-opted. Yet, Leslie Feinberg’s work resists neoliberal depoliticization and instead forces a reckoning with histories of Black radicalism, Palestine solidarity and the legacies of revolutionary trans women of color like Sylvia Rivera. As Leslie stated: “wherever racism rears its ugly head, our movement must be there.” And Leslie meant it and was always there — present in solidarity against trans misogyny, Islamophobia, white supremacy, the silencing of the AIDS epidemic, Israeli apartheid and US imperialism.

The solidarity of shared trauma: De-exceptionalising Gaza | Israel War on Gaza | Al Jazeera

Trevonte Helton, a 29 year old Black man, "was found hanging from a tree at High Shoal Falls in North Georgia." This man was murdered, and their quick eagerness to call this an "isolated" incident is just horrifying.

Long-term Reparations for a Black Family

The below write-up is from a previous post I made for Courtney but I copy and pasted it as I'm fatigued and it's still relevant.

For those of you who know my blog, you know my friend Courtney needs support. The reality is it is unlikely that that will change soon given that she is a disabled single mom providing for 3 kids with a low-wage job. I love her dearly and she genuinely struggles every day. I want to make the world better for her. I talk often about the power of community care. Courtney needs this consistently. If you are a non-Black person who is financially secure, please consider giving her reparations every month or biweekly. I will put her paylinks below. To work towards and as an accomplice of Black liberation, you need to be committed.

This part is not copy pasted but new.

Currently, her family is struggling with food, getting their water on, and saving for next month's rent. They don't have water at the moment and her son has no clean underwear left. They really need the water back on. The sooner the better. They need 136 more to get the water. If you see this, please send a dollar if possible, or even 50 cents. Small donations add up. Give reparations consistently and commit, but if you can't do it consistently still help out when you can.

Cash.me/browni3mom

Venmo @courtney-reece-85

Like halfway through "how Europe underdeveloped Africa" cause I decided I'd read/listen to it after I had a strong base on knowledge on African history and just holy fuck is he right about nearly everything so far.

Having learned about how extensive African trade was prior to the 18th century and how heavily most African kingdoms shifted in the 16th it's very clear that what he points out in the way the slave trade and the need to aquire firearms grew the European economies while near completely emptying out African economies and how the hard shift to European import goods after Europe had grow through the use of African slave labor and monopoly of trade routes is still a largely still at play in the era of neocolonialism.

The way that Walter Rodney not just points out that this is true, but the depth to which he covers a variety of African kingdoms, their economies, and cultural practices puts even some college level courses to shame while also showcasing the exact ways in which some of these stronger or more expansive kingdoms like the Ashanti, oyo, borno, Kongo, and Benin kingdoms had explicitly tried everything to get guns through any other trade and how the Ashanti, merina, Ethiopian, Burundi Benin kingdoms sought our education and scholars to begin industrialization and the systematic way in which Europeans and Americans prevented that is just, well it's damming.

It's a continuing reminder how from the first stage of European expansion and control they had precisely zero good intentions for the peoples of Africa. That Europe saw Africa as nothing more than a way to grow itself, it's institutions and improve its economies by depriving Africa of labor, materials and freedom which is true to this day, most starkly in the Congo but true across the whole region.

But while the book shows the crimes of Europeans without sugar coating, it also doesn't glorify the African leaders and more importantly those that became collaborative with European despitism. It also does not abide by the word games the European powers like to play and goes in depth to the way Europeans had no actual interest in ending slavery, and that while invading the various kingdoms and communities to "end slavery" the created some of the most brutal slave conditions on this side of the globe, not just in Leopolds Congo but in French forced labor camps and British controlled regions, with the Portuguese being particularly up front about it.

Truly a shame that like most other black radicals Rodney was murdered so young. The rarity to which black radicals even get to 40 shows how desperately capitalist and white supremist try to prevent even the slightest push back from black voices. It also makes clear how much we all need to know this stuff, from debois's black reconstruction to nkrumah's neoimperialism these books give a great understanding of the past and the precise way in which we arrived to the current situation.

I pray that with the new scramble for Africa that is unfolding in front of our very faces, the genocides in the Congo, and Sudan, and the way in which these interlock with the genocide of Palestinians, that we all take the time to properly read and reflect so that we may properly organize and fight back for a fully free and sovereign Africa and Palestine and a world free from white supremacy.

Happy black history month ya'll!!!

from @/pslnational

There is a long long conversation that I want to participate in and highlight about race and the Palestinian liberation struggle because 4 things are true:

1. Hypervisibility is not a privilege of the exploited. It's a harrowing experience to be observed perpetually by a global audience as you resist your own murder. Black people globally are very familiar with this experience. The Palestinian people are both hypervisible and dehumanized to such an extent that their national cause has been used rhetorically by many who are willing to watch and cry and throw pennies but not provide actual support for their safety, which feels very familiar to Black people.

2. Nonblack people globally on average do not recognize Black suffering as human suffering because Black life isn't recognized as human life by the averqge nonblack person. If that feels accusatory, it is. Think before responding to that, ask yourself some questions before you ask me a half baked one because by ethnicity, nationality, status in the eyes of civil society and so on, all nonblack people benefit from the dehumanizing of Black people.

3. Palestinians have used their hypervisibility for the benefit of the struggles of others even at their own expense, even at the risk of their lives, Palestinians have been insistent, for years, that their struggle is connected to the suffering of the whole world and they've been extremely correct.

4. Antiblackness is and always will be a factor in how nonblack people are treated collectively by the media gaze and how that manifests is actually significantly more complicated than "nonblack = positive, Black = negative " because proximity to and empathy for Black liberation is a factor in the treatment of nonblack groups, and when you put yourself out there on your own behalf and the behalf of Black people, your humanity becomes conditional to empire. Empathy for Black struggle, let alone solidarity with Black struggles for liberation, makes targets.

Here's a video explaining how the US invaded and occupied Haiti in the early 20th century

A symbol of resistance

Charlemagne Péralte

Charlemagne Péralte was a Haitian resistance leader shot by U.S. forces during the 1915 occupation.

After Péralte's death, U.S. troops displayed his body posed in a way that resembled a crucifixion – tied upright with a Haitian flag draped over him. This photo was intended to intimidate the Haitian population.

However, it backfired. The image resonated with Haitians, making Péralte a martyr and a symbol of resistance. There's even a famous Haitian painting called "The Crucifixion of Charlemagne Péralte for Freedom."