Please note, this is a proposal, not a passed resolution. And I have no idea how many members it would take to submit a resolution, so it could be two weirdos or have huge internal chapter support.
Edit: It appears I have started a struggle session. I apologise.
For the record, my own view on this is that it is well intentioned, but extremely poorly designed and (likely) to be poorly implemented as well. In one of my comments below, I say "I don’t think DSA, a predominantly white and PMC organization, is at all equipped to handle this in a way that doesn’t create more problems. To me, it would make more sense to have a Black socialist org be given the $ to do as they see fit, if this is a path the chapter votes on. It screams of white guilt rather than building power, and individual charity rather than mutual aid.". AFROSOC is an internal DSA org, as I understand it.
And I feel this is a textbook example of "charity vs mutual aid", with this decidedly being charity.
Real talk, it’s like in the past year reformists and socdems, confronted with the limitations of their ideas, learned the word “material,” and just use it to make the exact same shitty and/or reformist ideas sound sorta Marxist.
Uh, If you like your "materialism", you can keep it.
I feel like a lot of the talk around reparations looks like how Lenin describes Russian Economism. Too focused on improving the conditions of the workers without teaching the workers the political nature of their struggle, so you get stuff like this where what is essentially racially means tested mutual aid becomes understood as a political act in and of itself when it's actual role in a capitalist system should be just to keep people from dying. The Panthers understood reparations as a step in a political program of black anti-imperialism and black equality/self reliance but, to me at least, reparations alone has little difference from any other social policy like medicare for all. I think that kind of goes both ways though where a lot of people would laud the DSA for establishing a free clinic or some sort of mutual aid based healthcare program whereas this is mocked because of its racial character. I don't think you can deny the necessity of some form of reparations in a political program, and obviously this isn't the correct way to do it, but the special conditions of the different races in the US must be taken into consideration when attempting to organize them.
Idk what I'm getting at here but maybe someone can get something from it.
Edit: I thought about it a bit and I think I know what I'm getting at.
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Whether this is charity or mutual aid or this distinction between those two is irrelevant. We need political programs to achieve things. In the absence of a program any action is just flailing around trying to improve people's material conditions as Russian Economism was and how charities function. Mutual aid is not revolutionary by itself and neither is this thing the Seattle DSA has come up with(not that this is necessarily bad, but it is clearly not revolutionary and at best functions as mutual aid cloaked in revolutionary language).
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Reparations are necessary
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For reparations to be effective they need to be a political victory. That means they must be conceded by the state (or taken). To do this we must engage in class struggle, which means applying pressure to various strategic points within the class system to act in certain ways. While I am not sure of the best way to proceed from there, it obviously includes things like organizing black workers, organizing sympathetic or class conscious whites, and pressuring the big bourgeoisie to give in to our demands under threat of revolt.
What this means is that if Seattle DSA wants to begin fighting for actual reparations, they should lay out a framework for how they plan to achieve that goal and begin practicing that framework until it fails and must be adjusted or until it is successful. It will likely include a broad list of demands laid out by multiple different groups since blacks alone don't seem to be strong enough to win political battles in this country. Then the struggle must be carried out together. Solidarity must be built between these groups so that when the program is successful, they are not divided by some demands being met but not others. Solidarity between these groups will be built by a socialist organization, both by teaching the importance of solidarity and facilitating it's development.
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They are indeed. I bet they're kicking themselves for not coming up with this resolution as a bit. Really shows you that radlibs have, if nothing else, a hell of an imagination.
How can the DSA have so many Based chapters, yet still having the same amount of cringe chapters?
that's what lack of democratic centralism and communism does to a motherfucker.
I've seen centralism result in having a cringe national org but when they stay out of a local orgs doings that local org is very effective. The point is, it goes both ways, but centralism is still better.
I don’t want to be that person... but how is this not cointelpro?
It's so perfectly radlib it's hard to not think well meaning weirdos in the chapter came up with it on their own.
I imagine any COINTELPRO types would dismiss it as "too obvious".
I don't know, their infiltration of right-wing militias seems to be mostly "hello fellow white people how about let's film ourselves training to do crimes and then do crimes."
They are pretty hapless. At least the FBI. I used to joke that if Pete was the CIA candidate, then Tulsi was the directionless incoherent FBI candidate
It's definitely not, Seattle DSA is just insanely radlib when compared to other chapters. The "revolutionary" energy in the city is definitely just entirely captured by other orgs.
DSA stop being absolutely embarrassing for five minutes challenge.
Seattle DSA has a lot of cringe, and isn't especially good at winning elections, the people come from a good place though so I don't fault them for it, but SAlt is the org doing the most real stuff in the city.
Diverting 10% of local branch funding to black members isn’t actually a step on the path to remedying racism and historical injustice, and will probably create some animosity/obstacles/divisions that will get in the way of the organization functioning as a socialist group, socialism being the only way something like reparations will even be possible.
Ten percent of a local chapter is shit, sure, but why would it create animosity unless you are upset at black people getting money. Which, deal with that on your own time.
Acknowledging the material differences in which our comrades operate and running a small financial assistance program for members of AFROSOC or DSA is a step in the right direction; I'd probably make it slightly meanstested like "attend more than 1 meeting" but that's it. I've always thought that a revolutionary party should have professionally paid members, not do everything on a volunteer basis - that's how you get PMC logic and only rich people getting ahead in the party structure.
It’s not even that it’s not a lot of money, it’s not scalable towards anything resembling reparations for slavery, it’s not even on a path where you could begin making steps in the right direction. We’re not going to be able to mutual aid ourselves into reparations with the leftover scraps of the capitalists’ profits, we’re going to have to seize and control the commanding heights of the economy. The profits stolen by slave owners are probably best represented in the amalgamations of capital owned by the ruling class and not the wages that white workers earn.
And yea, I agree that you need professional revolutionaries, but I don’t really see how making payouts to members based solely on their race is a way to build a professional cadre, it’s just a way to build in some financial support for members who are POC.
And yes, I do think it builds in a division into the group. It’s literally taking dues paid by members from the entire branch and giving them to a specific subset of members. Like I personally would be paid despite having a full time job and enough money, while my much more senior comrade who lives off disability, and puts in objectively more work than I do, would not.
It’s not even that it’s not a lot of money, it’s not scalable towards anything resembling reparations for slavery, it’s not even on a path where you could begin making steps in the right direction
It doesn't have to be a lot of money, I don't think it is meant to replace government reparations. And you do not know for sure that it is a step in the wrong direction. Getting a small payout from AFROSOC that meets the bus fare to the meetings, or the bus fare to the protest, or the gas to drive my comrades from jail, could make the difference between a Black comrade showing up or falling through the cracks. Making rent could be the difference between having a housed comrade in good mental health or a houseless comrade you can no longer reach, or they are now in jail, or killed by cops. Money makes this world go around. A small amount can be the thing that puts people above a mental-breakdown that week. You don't know for sure.
Acknowledging the material differences in which our comrades operate and running a small financial assistance program for members of AFROSOC or DSA is a step in the right direction;
I mean a financial assistance program sounds good but why limit it to race instead of just whoever is in need of financial assistance?
It will be oversubscribed (you don't need to be a DSA member), and it's funding the reparations with money from white DSA members who may be just as bad off, on average, as the black DSA members. Reparations works on a societal level, where you're taxing rich individuals and corporations
you have to be an AFROSOC member, so while not DSA, they are still part of a socialist coalition.
I'd be cool to giving money to even the whitest motherfucker if they claim to be black, except for Shaun King.
The joke is Shaun King is a scammer no matter how black he claims to be.
This a good thing, or at the very least not a bad thing. The 20x posts concern trolling for poor non-white non-black socialists is far more cringe than this proposal.
It seems like a lot of people making fun of this take the issue with reparations as a concept.
nonblack pretend allies absolutely have the ability to get all these Black mutual aid fundraisers paid without devolving into DSA rules-lawyering but i'm side-eyeing the twitter and c.c users on here that talked all that good shit all summer during the george floyd uprisings suddenly going into hysterics about opening their purse and giving money to Black people
I don't think DSA, a predominantly white and PMC organization, is at all equipped to handle this in a way that doesn't create more problems. To me, it would make more sense to have a Black socialist org be given the $ to do as they see fit, if this is a path the chapter votes on. It screams of white guilt rather than building power, and individual charity rather than mutual aid.
There's already a black socialist org in Seattle that exists too which is the funny thing, although all of their members are affiliated with DSA in some respects.
is that not the point of divesting the immediate payout to AFROSOC to do as they see fit?
That's an internal org, as far as I know. That just means making distribution their problem, and they'll catch any blowback.
opening their purse and giving money to Black people
If the non-black people in that chapter are poor too, and have an immediate need for that money as much as anyone, I have a hard time seeing how this makes sense. Social programs like reparations should be paid for by taxing the wealthy and/or tapping our deficit spending power.
Yeah fr I think a few users here might have some unresolved issues based on how they're responding to this (I'll admit: somewhat harebrained) proposal.
^^ This user is a troll. Just take a look at their user history to see for yourself
Lmao the chronic sectarian is accusing me of being a fed, that's rich :michael-laugh:
The existence of mutual aid to disenfranchised people is not a charity project nor is it why leftists have "no power" (in the west) but you do you my friend :)
To me, reparations is a "corporate" or state act, versus an individual or small group. In addition, reparations is for all, not few. At this level, of one chapter, it seems much more like charity.
Now, reparations are far away (unfortunately), so is this at least something? Yes. But I think it's too performative and scattershot rather than systemic power building or mutual aid.
Yeah, it sounds like we just have different definitions of reparations. To me, an individual can't make reparations for a historical atrocity - that has to come from the state that performed that atrocity. Leaving it at the individual leads to too much individualistic thinking/blame assigning/blame dodging and is likely to create tension within the group.
But I have no problem with individuals doing the acts you described, I just can't think of it as reparations?
Honestly, I might just be being a nerd about the word!
Naw, we aren't libs who means test like that. Census answers only, everyone involved receives the same amount, and we move forward.
Ok. Being the sort of cop who is too afraid of "someone getting something they don't deserve" in this country is pure liberalism.
What's your game plan to immediately improve the material conditions of Black and Black Trans people during a period of national crisis?
I mean, what's your game plan for immediately improving the material conditions of black and black trans people during a period of (inter)national crisis? Because doing reparations with a few hundred dollars in DSA dues isn't going to do that, especially because the crisis isn't limited to black or black trans people, working class people have less spending power rn in general, and DSA dues are fairly low to begin with.
Also side point, but important point--Marxists talk about "material conditions" basically to describe the conditions of life produced by capitalism. It's not really used to refer to how much more money that this or that working class person has in their pocket because of a reform or a mutual aid project or whatever, especially because we live in a system where surplus gets sucked up. This is significant, because the only way to actually raise material conditions is to transform the mode of production and society to produce better conditions of life for working class people. Socialism is the basis for improving material conditions for the working class.
This is a thread about the critique of opening a mutual aid fund to Black people, beloved.
If a Black trans person hit you up today and said they're struggling with employment and needed funds to move out of an abusive housing situation, or at least someone to spread their GFM to get more visibility to it, would you assist them or lecture them about how you can't assist them because that would just be doing charity?
Ah, but I would help them because they need help, not because they are black or because they are trans.
Reparations are not a dumb idea but some random DSA chapter doing for what I assume would be a fairly small amount of people it is kinda weird tbh.
Lol Amazon has finally intrigued the SocDem chapter of Seattle. Fuck all of you
idgi whats wrong with "black people have historically been discriminated against and are still suffering because of it, we should help out"
like the hamfisted approach of "give black people a chunk of the DSA money" could maybe be handled a bit more elegantly? but the actual concept behind this seems fine??
i mean, yeah, obviously a broader, society-wide thing would be better.
that, uh, doesn't exist though. and i've gotta say i'm really not convinced "helping people now means we can't build something bigger and help people later!!" logically follows here.
ah, yeah, if the objection is just "this is way too hamfisted to address what it's trying to address", then, yes, absolutely agreed there
Does the DSA really have dues for people who can't afford them? If so, that's the main problem here.
Pretty sure if you can show "economic hardship" you can get them waived
Maybe I'm just dumb but I don't see anything wrong with this? Someone please explain why it's 'cringe.'
Probably look at their ID and see if their race is listed as black.I thought we we were pro reparations.Wait nvm I thought drivers licenses listed race but I guess not.
Idk I don't think it's really that big a deal. It's certainly not going to remedy the issue at its core but I don't see how it would be as disastrous as you propose. Why would it breed resentment in non-black members?
I thought DSA was mostly white PMC types. That's what I've been lead to believe by people here at least. I'm not sure this struggling Guatamalan Maya immigrant member of the Seattle DSA exists.
There are tens of thousands of members so of course there are still a lot of non-white and non-black members.
Yea it's a bit much but from what I gathered from the rest of the thread this particular DSA branch doesn't really do anything so they might as well do something. But I acknowledge it's not a great idea but I just don't think it's as bad as everyone says.
Sitting here and calling it "cringe" is lazy af. I think that "the Seattle DSA isn't equipped to handle this issue" and that "reparations can be good as a form of mutual aid, but they are a bit of a patch if the recipients are brought into the greater political struggle" are reasonable criticisms.
Not to mention that it's in the earliest stages of existence, so you're sort of "dunking" on thin air.
This whole conversation devolved into a slapfight largely because of OP's shitty title. You get a bonus layer on top by the people who read "this isn't cringe" as "there are no valid criticisms of this proposal" and then get even more mad online.
