Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hello!

I'm not new to Gaia, but new to this guild, and firstly, I'll apologize for how long this will get to be, I know some people choose to do something other than Gaia.

I'll introduce myself to get started (I know there is a thread for this, but it will make sense in time) I'm from one of the more rural parts of Indiana, I am also white, and unfortunately because of my location, and that particular location's proximity to one of the worst places on earth (the homebase of the KKK) I find myself to be lacking a true understanding of people of what I'll call minority status (so as not to offend those here who are not of African descent or are lol). This altogether amplified by the fact that I am an avowed, active, and proud Marxist (generally, we're called communists). I know there is a certain stigma with this (especially in America of all places).

Mainly, I just wanted to ask a few questions to the people here, I am part of the CPUSA (www.cpusa.org), and I have spoken with black members of the party, but they are for the most part, older (I don't go to the youth meetings though- so pehraps that's my own fault!) I'm 18 btw. And, it has always been a hallmark of our party to advance minorities and the racially and nationally oppressed. But I feel myself lacking lately as I don't really have a terrific understanding of what it's like to be a minority. You'll also note I'm in a guild (the elected chairman thereof) and we do have minority members who find themselves influenced by Marxism, and thus we just end up repeating eachother!

So to start in my line of questions.

Have you ever been approached by or known a Marxist?

Have you heard anything about us or read Native Son or similar works, or been taught of the Scottborough (SP) Boys? (I'm going for school here- if your parents have told you of this.. well tell me that too lol).

I may know just as well as anybody here racism is still alive and well (at least where I live) and I just wanted to ask, how often do you encounter acts or instances of racism?

nearly lastly, I wanted to know (if you've experienced it) what's it like to be descriminated against simply for your racial background- the feelings it provokes.

And lastly, if you could change anything in your country and its set up, what would it be if anything?



I'm sorry if my questions are too personal, or evoke feelings that arn't necessarily good to feel. I also can't help but feel a bit ackward asking everybody here to answers these questions without even knowing them first on a personal basis! I hope you can forgive me.

If you'd rather not reply publically I'm open to PMs. Again I apologize for my prying and my ignorance.

Thanks to all those who answer! I will do my best to be a regular member or at least an addition!

Have you ever been approached by or known a Marxist? If I have, I wouldn't know.

Have you heard anything about us or read Native Son or similar works, or been taught of the Scottborough (SP) Boys? Sorry, but no, I've never heard of your group or read anything like that. sweatdrop

I may know just as well as anybody here racism is still alive and well (at least where I live) and I just wanted to ask, how often do you encounter acts or instances of racism? Well, in the real world I don't encounter it as much, since I tend to avoid people.

Nearly lastly, I wanted to know (if you've experienced it) what's it like to be descriminated against simply for your racial background- the feelings it provokes. Honestly, being treated differently for stuff like my gender or skin color makes me want to punch people in the face. I'm not so much angry as I just wish people could get sense knocked into them. xp

And lastly, if you could change anything in your country and its set up, what would it be if anything? I'd change everything.

To passion: You're correct in my wanting a different set of opinions, it is too easy to simply resort to the class conflict and move around in a circle, though these particular member's experiences warrant this, I wanted perspectives that wouldn't or do not, use the Marxist lense.


As for have I ever been discriminated against- to be honest, along racial lines- no (small town Indiana, and I'm white so that makes me subject to white supremacists leaving news letters in my mail box- but nothing else). I did have a bit of a mark on me in High School for being in LD (learning disability- I have a rarer form of dyslexia, related to numerical figures and some letters) classes through elementary school, but I later became known as "one of the smart ones", which has its own set of social expectations lol.

To: Dark Lady Jade

Yeah, I've seen the gender treatment received by my Fiancee quite often, though I do have the same here, as males in my area are expected to be handy man/mechanics etc, and I know very little, if any, about that, but not many people talk about, or notice that, so I only have it mentioned 1-2 times every 5 years or so.

To Kasumi08

I do understand that one, especially with the "media" occasionally pumping in the reports about how whites will soon be a "minority" in order to stir up some sort of racial reaction, for what reasons, well I could list them, namely; the reduction of wages, but I'll not go further than that. I do see how being listed as a "minority" or other would debase a person, as you're (or whoever is being listed as a minority) being acknowledged with a term that is very close to "abnormal". An insight that is invaluable to me, I thank you for this.

I also don't really like Mancia all that much, if I go for comedy I usually go for spoofs of things I know about, Montey Python, and modernish comedy (really anything that happened during or before 96).


Mainly I made this thread because I do think (at least from what I've seen and heard) that there are many problems with racism that still exist today, particularlly in urban areas and extremely rural areas. But I don't really know much about what it is like to be the people on the receiving end. Though I am, except in a few countries, politically an extreme minority (only about 15,000 members) I still don't get too much heat from it as people always say "Marxists mean well, but (insert concillatory statement here)."

As for why I asked about Native Son and the Scottborough Boys, we have a teacher in my area who basically makes it her mission to expose her students to 1920-1940 African American literature, as well as some lesser read stuff from Asian immigrants around the 1890s. Anyways oddly enough both cases included mention of the CPUSA, there was also another court case (around the same time period 1920-1940ish) that the CPUSA became involved in, in favor of an accused serial killer, I believe he was found guilty, but the CPUSA became involved because of what the papers were saying about him and how they were demonizing him and anybody who looked like him. I felt lucky to get an education like that, as I have asked some people that lived in Indianapolis (probably one of the biggest cities in Indiana, or perhaps all of the US, not totally sure) don't even mention these books or court cases in their literature or english classes and mostly just overlook these writers in favor of more so-called eurocentric writers or Ray Bradburry (nothing against him).

And for your added reading pleasure, I'll include how Marxists view racism.

Essentially all of society can be broken down into two groups.. Business owners and Workers. Both of these groups constantly fight eachother for power. Business owners want more profit, more political control/power, and expanding capital. Workers want better living standards, lower working hours, better wages, more democracy, and social saftey nets. Thus these two sides duke it out for control of society- and the implimentation of a society in their image, and to their sole favor.

Race comes into it in this way.... The easiest way to keep wages and living standards down, is to divide the working class (keep them from combining, unionizing, etc).. How better to do this than to make members of the working class down right hate eachother for reasons as down right stupid as skin color or sexual preference? So it's naturally perpetuated by the system of capitalism, because those in charge of businesses will always try to keep somebody from being able to combine with other segments of the working classes (be it women or any other group- it doesn't really matter to our capitalist class much, so long as it causes division).

Not to mention, furthermore, that this sort of descrimination (to promote division) promotes clustering, and then exploitation (reports of "minority" urban and cultural areas being turned into landfills) on an even grander scale (higher than necessary housing costs- or particular "nonminority" communities receiving better public assistance than others). This also reduces social mobility for the particular oppressed person's group (again really the aim is like a scatter shot- sometimes women, sometimes racially based, sometimes sexual preference, or a combination of any). Thus keeping this group amongst the most downtrodden and economically weak portion of the working class (and keeping them especially in jobs which arn't conducive to union like activites). And if this particular group complains? Single them out as being lazy, worthless, or incompetant freeloaders- and push more of the working class against the singled out group as a whole through the outlet of the corporate owned media.

The essence of strategies for the capitalist: Keep the workers poor and divided and you will become richer and more powerful.

The essence of strategies for workers: combine, unite, and gain political power and higher living standards for all people.


The Marxist bases these principles and working ideas not only on principle, but on historical fact which is repeated again, and again, and again once more.


Now you know why it's sort of pointless to talk to fellow marxists about this :p because we essentially cover the human suffering aspect of it with a theoretical moot point about racial oppression = the tool of the capitalist class to divide workers.

Marxists aboslutely love to observe and provide analysis of division within society (as the ultimate goal of Marxism is a society without any class division).

Division as far as this goes for the working class has really been all over the board, and there really isn't any special formula either- which can confound a lot of social scientists I image. When capitalism first cropped up in Great Britain the most exploited workers were women and children. At the time children often worked as many hours as their adult compatriots (which could be at least 10 hours a day- often anywhere from 12-16), most children never went to school and began working at age 4. Though, in time the legal age limit was raised to six- but industrious parents could still send their children who looked old enough to be six into the labor force. Women's conditions were often even worse, a quote from a labor report cited in Marx's Das Kapital "It is not an entirely unknown occurance in the sea worthy provinces, to behold scores of naked women pulling barges upon the shore like a team of oxen".

Of course this was in the United Kingdom, in the US the most expoited were generally women, children, and the added category of nonwhites. Mostly people of African decent, Native Americans, and people from what would become Latin America. Even after the civil war wages for African Americans, women, and child workers remained considerably below that of a white male's. Note also that at many times in history, at the births of these "democracies" (including the US) one had to be a property owner to even be considered a voter (and then they had to pay a poll tax to use the polls to vote).

All of these divisions and violations of what most would call innate human rights were all in the name of keeping the capitalist class in a position of complete domination. Even today women on average earn a few cents less an hour than men in positions of equal exertion (though state laws do mandate equal pay in nominally equal positions- baring seniority and "reliability"), I don't know the statistics for nonwhite peoples, but I can assume it's the same situation if not worse (especially for nonwhite women).

The "united we stand" is seen by Marxists as a concillatory gesture from the ruling class (capitalists) to suggest that we're all on the same team, and that they, as defacto political leaders, are the ones to follow, because otherwise we would fall- as per the saying.

The saying on the other hand, is certainly true for workers. If people in the working class bicker and divide themselves it's only a matter of time before wages, living standards, and social saftey nets disapear.

(a Marxist rant if I ever saw one!)