Race, Identity Politics and Class
As part of the JVL Member Seminars * , JVL’s Antiracist Alliance Network organised a session looking at “Race, Identity Politics and Class”. The presentations are below and the discussion showed that there was an appetite for further debate and work on this; we shall, consequently, be looking at this issue again in the Autumn. Meanwhile your comments on, for example, how to balance the importance of highlighting the experiences and conditions that we share as working class people and allies with the importance of recognising, valuing and learning from the fact that experiences and oppression are different depending on our identity. Further, how do we ensure that our focus on these crucial aspects of our lives does not then drift – or even gallop – into division, which will work only in the interests of the ruling class.
(* more presentations on our Education Tab)
That’s a dreadful cartoon that encapsulates everything that is wrong with a dualistic, non-dialectical approach to politics and the failure to appreciate that one contradiction seemingly resolved inevitably leads to others, quite often unexpected. Your speakers may well have had important things to say but I’m afraid I wasn’t moved to watch after seeing that cartoon, lest it was prefigurative of things to come.
Thank you for your comment – I do hope you will watch the short videos – your concerns and that dilemma were very much present in the presentations and the later discussion and why there was such a strong desire to explore these issues further – and, indeed, the way the left gets divided about this. How do we promote that more dialectical approach that is lacking with a right/wrong, with us/against dichotomy as though there was no nuance, no mistakes being made that can be corrected without having to be attacked or be defensive. Please do watch and then comment again,