Identity: The Left's Nightmare
🌙 Observations on white organizing spaces on the left
Cultural homogeneity is the greatest threat on the left. Whether we work on the perfect political project or have the “correct” political orientation, if our organizations do not represent the broad multi-racial working class, the anti-capitalist left will be monopolized by white folks imposing organizational hegemony on everyone else.
I’ll talk about an identity problem in two ways: the criticisms placed upon the left’s culture, and the culture itself. I focus on whiteness as a cultural construct, but in the fight to build a mass movement of the broad working class, we have to win on the battlefields of gender, age, language, religion, and so many other cultural signifiers.
The three observers we should consider are:
White organizers who reside comfortably in white organizing spaces.
Non-white organizers criticizing the whiteness of their own or other leftist organizations.
Outside observers such as new organizers and sympathetic listeners.
I’ll also call out three topics which influence the discourse:
Domination of whiteness: If you take public transit to a leftist event in Oakland, and actually sit at the leftist space, are the cultures, appearances, language, and ideas the same between the two groups of people you see?
Non-white erasure: Does labeling a leftist organization a “white organization” undermine the protagonism of non-white members and remove their control over the collective story?
Tension between class and other identities: Are we stuck with our arms crossed, one side repeating accusations of class reductionism, the other trotting out that only workers can confront the forces of capital regardless of identity?
The discourse shapes us
Sociologist Stuart Hall makes a compelling case that discourse does not just live in the sphere of ideas; the dissemination itself of these messages affects us in ways informed by the culture and lived experiences we are rooted in:
“...the sweater always signifies a 'warm garment' (denotation) and thus the activity/value of 'keeping warm'. But it is also possible, at its more connotative levels, to signify 'the coming of winter' or 'a cold day'. And, in the specialized sub-codes of fashion, sweater may also connote a fashionable style of haute couture or, alternatively, an informal style of dress. But set against the right visual background and positioned by the romantic sub-code, it may connote "long autumn walk in the woods'.”
Stuart Hall, Encoding & Decoding in the Television Discourse
When I first heard the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) described as a white organization, I wondered if it was the right political home for me. In our political moment, does the sum of all the components that compose DSA entice college-educated white men and repel every other identity? Do the languages we speak, the clothes we wear, the jokes we make, the food we eat, the ways we are kind and the ways we are cruel, does this make us a white organization? If so, should I be here?
In our leaky faucet of organizers entering and falling out of the DSA stratosphere, I managed to stay long enough to reach an inflection point: I believed this organization, for all its flaws, was the closest to having the scale, the freedom from billionaire donors, and the democratic and mass movement habits that could steer the next political moment.
At this point, the discourse affected me differently. Once I felt like the organization equally belonged to me as much as any other member, every utterance of DSA as a “white organization,” as true as it might be, pokes holes in our boat as it drives folks to question whether DSA is the right organization for them. But in the same way discourse drives uncertainty about DSA as the vehicle for a mass movement, it can also be a tool to drive support. To build a mass, multi-racial working class movement, our project is to shape the space and discourse, erasing the separation between labor and the left.
Shaping the space
We don’t have power over whether any one person joins or leaves a leftist organization. We do have power over the time and place someone makes that decision.
When considering how people interact with spaces of people, here are terms missing from our discourse:
Psychological safety: the ability to risk expressing thoughts, ideas, and concerns.
Norms: socially-informed behaviors and habits.
Ownership: having a shared stake in an outcome (not to be confused with commodified ownership).
Let’s run through an example of these terms at work. Imagine you go up to a canvassing table with your organization’s banner. On the table are flyers. Do you pick them up?
Psychological Safety
Who are you when you approach the table? If you’re an anti-capitalist organizer walking by, you might see the people surrounding the table as comrades. You’ll take a look at the flyer.
Alternatively, if you’re a woman of color who has never entered anti-capitalist spaces before and the table is surrounded by white men, you’d probably hesitate to approach the table.
It’s not just about what you see, but also what you hear. If you notice people using words that antagonize you or words you aren’t familiar with, your sense of belonging is diminished. If you hear dialogue that uniquely resonates with you, your ears will perk up and your curiosity will kick in.
Norms
What are the expected behaviors around table canvassers? Is the table at a farmer’s market? We’d all expect it's acceptable to approach the table, everyone is tabling to get your attention or money. If the table is at the park, you might be less inclined, maybe the table is for an event you weren’t invited to.
Is there a line in front of the table? You don’t want to wait in line, so you might just walk past. Alternatively, you might be curious and approach the line to learn what is going on.
Norms are constructed, intentionally or unintentionally. Are the flyers facing you or towards the canvassers? Is there a sign that says “TAKE ONE” next to the flyers? Is there a single flyer or a giant stack?
Ownership
What are your goals? Are you going to work, and someone holding a flyer is trying to get your attention again on your morning commute? Are you a rally-goer confronting an injustice, and do you have hope that we can do something about it? Are you the one standing behind the canvassing table single-mindedly convincing people to join you in the fight?
We’ve seen organizers who develop a socialist consciousness but stop organizing and withdraw from ownership of our shared projects. We can also see people who are committed to lifelong projects that require zero class consciousness or political development. This tells us political development could be necessary for our project, but it is not sufficient for ownership.
Ownership is informed by norms and psychological safety. This is tangential to what Marta Harnecker calls protagonism and generates what many leftists call spadework. You’re comfortable kicking up your feet on the table in a space you feel psychologically safe in and where the norms have signaled to you that you can be laid back. If childcare is available for your kids, your dietary restrictions are considered, others are speaking the same language or dialect as you, this space just might belong to you.
The task at hand
To erase the line of separation between the multi-racial working class and the anti-capitalist movement is a question of what external experiments around dialogue and space-building we run. When thinking of these experiments, here are a few actionable steps to take based on my conversations with the three types of observers mentioned at the beginning:
When someone criticizes cultural homogeneity in your organization, whether it be whiteness or any other cultural identity, don’t get defensive. But even worse, don’t address the grievance with platitudes of “I know, it's really a problem we need to address.” Summon the protagonist in the griever and in yourself. No one will address the identity problem but you two. What do we do now? Do we care enough to do something about it?
A critical analysis of identity politics is important, but not as important as putting ideas to the test. I recently heard an organizer pose whether a women's group would be schismatic by creating an entirely separate organizing space in their organization for women. Save that hypothetical for when your org becomes a safe organizing space for women in the first place.
Burning out women and people of color by accelerating them into roles of leadership is a problem endemic to predominantly-white organizing spaces. You can be mindful of that while also asking for help. Are you a white man who wants to know how to solve the identity problem in your anti-capitalist space? Ask the women and people of color around you and connect them into spaces with people who look like them. Talk with people and ask what norms exist which keep them from feeling like the left is their political home. We can’t leave culture behind.
Don’t be afraid of affinity groups around identity. I recently met a teacher who organizes outside of DSA who discovered we had a vegan group. It wasn’t until then that he was excited to get involved because that was a space he felt he belonged. Building belonging and ownership of our project is the first step we all take, and building pathways to cultivate belonging around affinity groups would make a better first impression than going to an event where no one looks like you, speaks like you, dresses like you, or is interested in what you’re interested in. Affinity groups are foundational places from which we can explore.
It’s just about as materialist as it gets to consider the ways space and discourse affect people’s actions. Tithi Bhattacharya makes a bold point: to build the mass movement, we don’t win the argument with the oppressed. We win their trust. We can argue universalism on our leftist blogs, but its by the fruits of our experiments how we know what works and what doesn’t. These experiments in composing our organization of the multi-racial working class are the prerequisite to building a mass movement, so let’s start composing. 🎵