So, per my request, syntaxblk added my name to the blocklist (and with the most detailed entry, no less!). As usual with this crowd, there are many funny aspects, but I wanted to draw up a few notes
1.) These people aren’t leftists. They have no coherent economic analysis. Their politics are an aestheticized jumble of “social justice” causes, and as such, they are laser-focused on speech acts, to the exclusion of all else. The only things they are capable of talking about or criticizing are the ways other people speak online: who is or isn’t “allowed” to speak on a topic, what words they are or aren’t “allowed” to use (see: “say her name”)—and that’s it. When it comes to the real world, they’ve got nothing.
2.) They are also hopelessly identitarian, and this stems from their adoption of afropessimist philosophy. You find similar “radical pessimist” notions in TERFism, third worldism, and certain strains of anarchism. The “oppressor class” is evil, which is why they oppress; white people are colonizers because white people are bad, not because colonization is profitable. This is an anti-materialist position that cannot create an effective politics. It’s a disease of powerlessness. It’s contemptible where it’s not just sad.
3.) #oh wow here we go calling black people psyops
William O’Neal was an FBI informant who infiltrated the Black Panthers in Chicago. He provided the FBI with detailed information about Fred Hampton’s apartment, and then slipped secobarbital into Hampton’s drink so that he would not wake up before the feds could assassinate him. William O’Neal was also a Black man. Identity isn’t a defense like you think it is.
