108.-with-allies-like-these-privelege-reductionism.pdf
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With Allies Like These:

Reflections on
Privilege Reductiéni


With Allies Like These:
Reflections on
Privilege Reductions

by 2 Ha mito on member:
1 Toronto member
2. & With Allies Like These


risen to a position of immense influence on activist discourse in North

America. Anti-oppression workshops and reading groups, privilege
and oppression checklists and guidelines, and countless books, online blogs
and articles make regular appearances in anarchist organizing and discussion.
Enjoying a relatively hegemonic position in Left conversation, anti-oppression
politics have come to occupy the position of a sacred object—something that
expresses and reinforces particular values, but does not easily lend itself to
critical reflection. Indeed, itis common for those who question the operating and
implications of anti-oppression politics to be accused of refusing to seriously
address oppression in general. A political framework should be constantly
reflected upon and evaluated—it is a tool that should serve our struggles and
not vice versa,



O ver the course of the last several decades, anti-oppression politics have



Against this backdrop, this article aims to critically engage with the dominant
ideas and practices of anti-oppression politics. We define anti-oppression
politics as a related group of analyses and practices that seeks to address
inequalities that materially, psychologically, and socially exist in society through.
education and personal transformation. While there is value in some aspects
of anti-oppression politics, they are not without severe limitations. Anti-
oppression politics obfuscates the structural operations of power and promotes
a liberal project of inclusion that is necessarily at odds with the struggle to
build a collective force capable of fundamentally transforming society. It is
our contention that anti-oppression furthers a politics of inclusion as a poor
substitute for a politics of revolution. The dominant practices of anti-oppression
further an approach to struggle whose logical conclusion is the absorption of
those deemed oppressed into the dominant order, but not to the eradication and
transformation of the institutional foundations of oppression,



Common Cause * 3
I. Historical Context

‘The Defeat of Liberation and the Rise of anti-oppression

Inthe Global North, the 1960s and 1970s marked a high point in social movement
struggle. Today, when revolution can seem impossible, it is difficult to imagine
atime when militants spoke of “the revolution” not cynically, but as something
that was happening, or would happen in the near future. Subdued using old-
fashioned strategies of incarceration, murder, sexual assault, espionage and
surveillance, blacklisting, and other forms of direct physical, economical, and
emotional violence, beginning in the 1980s, the Left found itself entombed in
a sophisticated system of control and co-option. In describing this, our goal is
to illustrate how anti-oppression polities are neither radical, nor revolutionary.
In fact, the prominence of anti-oppression in activist circles is both a symptom
of, and contributing factor to, the ongoing victory of the ruling elite over our
movements,

Dylan Rodriguez (2007), in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, elaborates this
reality:



Indeed, the US state learned from its encounters with the crest of radical
and revolutionary liberationist movements of the 1960s and early 1970s
that endless, spectacular exercises of military and police repression
against activists of colour on the domestic front could potentially
provoke broader local and global support for such struggles—it was in
art because they were so dramatically subjected to violent and racist
US state repression that Black, Native American, Puerto Rican, and other
domestic iberationists were seen by significant sectors of the US and the
international public as legitimate freedom fighters, whose survival of the
racist State pivoted on the mobilization of a global political solidarity. On
the other hand, the US state has found in its coalition with the Non-Profit
Industrial Complex a far less spectacular, generally demilitarized, and
still highly effective apparatus of political discipline and repression that
(to this point) has not provoked a significant critical mass of opposition
or political outrage.

Strategies previously employed by State-Capital interests to dispose of a
fighting trade union movement were modified and extended to control the
heterogeneous New Left movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Rather than being
crushed by outright military force, elements of the resistance movements are
subsumed into the inner workings of State and Capital, and ultimately come

4 & With Allies Like These
to reinforce the overarching structures of exploitation and oppression. In the
1950s in Canada, what is known as ‘labour peace’ was declared by a subsection
of the labour movement, Capital and the State. The process of establishing
labour peace involved some key elements which could be seen as analogous to
the pacification of other movements.

‘The process begins with legitimizing a section of the antagonistic movement,
and propping them up as leaders or representatives of the whole. This
representation requires funding and a bureaucracy to maintain itself. In the case
of labour peace, funding was guaranteed by the Rand Formula, a policy which
requires employers whose workers are unionized to collect dues and hand them.
over to the union, which serves to put the union in a dependent position to the
legislative framework, and therefore the State. The maintenance of power and
outside legitimacy by those placed on the top of the hierarchy is contingent on
their discipline of the rank and file.

Finally, other systems of domination are mobilized to keep everyone in check—
for example, white union workers enforcing a racial hierarchy among their co-
workers,

The One-Two Punch: Destroy and Replace

While the co-option of revolutionary movements was no new insight on the
part of the ruling class, the scale of this project was novel. Understanding that
every new generation would bring with ita “new” awareness that revolutionary
change is desirable, the ruling class sought to create infrastructure not just to
contain existing movements, but to redirect the energies of future ones. Destroy
existing movements by way of violence, infiltration, etc, and replace all aspects
of people's movements with institutions that are in line with the interests of the
ruling class, For our purposes, itis on this latter point that we focus.



In the 1980s, substantial inroads were made for new areas where people's,
organizations previously enjoyed a monopoly: the creation of revolutionary
theory, the internal movement and popular education by which that theory is
shared and elaborated upon, the provision of services to marginalized people
and the creation of progressive social spaces. In these four areas, liberalism
posturing as an emancipatory politics has thoroughly washed the revolutionary
potential away.

Common Cause * 5
Development of Analysis and Theory

While analysis and theory were historically produced by radicals in the context
of struggle, this task has largely been shifted into the realm of academia.
Over the course of the last several decades, entire bodies of literature and
corresponding vocabularies have been developed, turning radical theory
and analysis into a highly specialized undertaking. Coming out of the 1970s,
many liberation movements sought to create homes for themselves within
the university through the creation of ‘Progressive Studies’ departments
(eg. Gender Studies, Critical Race Studies, Disability Studies, Queer Studies,
Labour Studies, etc.).



At the time, some activists thought that obtaining space within universities was
an important goal because of its potential to organize collectively, and because
of the large amount of resources within the university. However, in hindsight,
the channeling of resistance into the universities facilitated the destruction of
the grassroots movements, and created a space in which people could build
careers off of the backs of past struggles, Despite ostensibly radical beginnings,
Progressive Studies function to hinder (rather than further) the interests of
revolutionary movements.



‘The gravitation of would-be revolutionaries to the university for an
.ducation’, where radical theory is subject to bourgeois pressures more than
an accountability to humanity, harnesses our radical traditions and erases
collective memory of struggle. There exists a fundamental misunderstanding
(to be generous regarding motivation) ofa radical education: that the classroom
can serve as a foundation for transformative politics, rather than an adjunct to
learning and development focused on real-world struggle.





“Research” conducted by students on marginalized constituencies, which
is the closest thing to grassroots work that may be seen, is often based on
such exploitative assumptions and power relationships that value may only
occasionally be derived from it. The demobilizing effects of the alienation of
theory from action cannot here be overstated,

In the creation of Progressive Studies, the passing of stories, information,
theory, and practice was very smartly removed from organizations where work
was happening, The blossoming of the historical study of people’s movements
by academia in the past thirty years has had some key effects. Those with the
best access to university have the best access to people’s history. Simply having
access to university, being competent working within it, and having an interest
in people's history, is enough to facilitate access to the history.

6 * With Allies Like These


‘Therefore, there is no correlation between access to history, the framing and
development of that history, and being engaged in struggle oneself. Lacking
intimate knowledge of the context of organizing, students of people’s history
are rarely capable of understanding the material they study. Therefore, we have
noticed that historians who consider themselves “radicals” because they have
an interest in liberation stories are often stumped when it comes to extracting
the value from their work.







While people's history was a people's pursuit in the 1960s and 1970s,
its movement into the university effectively removed people's access and
contributions to it. In this sense, history is back to being written by the victors
= the liberal bourgeoisie, and those who are able to adapt their studies to
their criteria for inclusion. Despite this, it manages to maintain a veneer of
subversiveness, which is misleading and unhelpful.

Popular and movement education

Popular education has been almost entirely abandoned by the Left, from radical
to reformist. Here we focus on internal movement education, and how it is done.

Movement education continues in the form of mentoring, book-fairs,
‘workshops, literature, online forums, and formal training programs. This stands
in contrast to the pedagogy employed by successful movements in the past and
contemporarily: education of individual militants is best done in the midst of
work, struggle, and action,





James P Garrett worked extensively on the creation of Black Studies at San
Francisco State University, a program which was exemplary in the creation
of Progressive Studies departments around North America. Interviewed by
Ibram Rogers (2009) in Remembering the Black Campus Movement: An Oral
History Interview with James P. Garrett, he recounts his own political education,
beginning when he “got involved in the sit-in movements, We demonstrated and
Iwas arrested seven times that summer and I was hooked. My life changed... by
the time I got to [San Francisco] State I was ready. I was trained and prepared. |
came there as a veteran of the movement





Here we contrast the militant who arrives at university “trained” (not
‘manners, but in the manipulation of power for radical ends) and then proceeds
to organize, instead of arriving hoping to be educated.



Describing the goals of the creation of Black Studies as the redirection of
university resources “to benefit orameliorate the Black community,’ he is critical
of modern careerists “who consolidated the attire of Black consciousness” and

Common Cause * 7
“owe a tremendous amount — they don’t pay — but they owe a tremendous
amount to the sacrifices of people who lost their hands their fingers, their eyes,
people who spent time in prison who were killed—students.” Pragmatically,
Garret is not wedded to the continuation of the institution he helped to create,
but hopes younger militants will “develop a worldview about what education
should be in the twenty-first century for young Blacks and then move to organize
around that.”





Eveninformsofmovementeducation which were later depictedasindividualized,
such as Consciousness Raising (CR), people actually emphasized the collective
creation and distribution of knowledge by those affected. CR, borrowed by the
‘Women’s Movement from Chinese revolutionaries, was a self-education process
in groups of women who articulated the truthful realities of their lives to one
another, thereby creating a new knowledge of their collective situation.

Of course, the term consciousness raising is now used more to describe
awareness of issues faced by oneself or others. The original meaning of the
term was not an individual intellectual exercise or imposition. Instead, CR
was a deliberate tactic whose goal was to provide a tool with which people
could raise themselves from the destitutions in which they found themselves
to become militants with agency, by fostering a class-consciousness, based on
their experiences (in this example) as women.





‘The developmentofclass-consciousness, history and identity by avast collective,
in contrast to representatives of given groups who are seen as having authority
to speak is perhaps subtle, but important. We see most often in anti-oppression
an emphasis on the latter.

In researching this article, we found The Combahee River Collective Statement
(1978) to be one of the most frequently cited documents in the origin stories of
anti-oppression, Often mentioned in the first paragraphs of modern writing and
workshop outlines, it was not obvious to us that this document had in fact been
read by most authors.





‘The Combahee Collective takes great pains to describe a process by which its
members,all Black Lesbians, educated themselves,and got them tothe conclusion
that they should continue the creation of a Black Lesbian consciousness and
analysis, rather than individualizing insights regarding their condition, as is
done contemporarily. The Collective describes the effect that the group-based
generation of knowledge had on their development:



There is also undeniably a personal genesis for Black Feminism, that
is, the political realization that comes from the seemingly personal

8 & With Allies Like These
experiences of individual Black women’s lives. Black feminists and many
more Black women who do not define themselves as feminists have all
experienced sexual oppression as a constant factor in our day-to-day
existence ... Black feminists often talk about their feelings of craziness
before becoming conscious of the concepts of sexual polities, patriarchal
rule, and most importantly, feminism, the political analysis and practice
that we women use to struggle against our oppression.



Practitioners of anti-oppression have been heard to say, “a white person cannot,
beanexperton racism.” In practice, especially in combination with the Non-Profit
Industrial Complex (NPIC), where paid jobs increasingly demand a university
education, a degree in any Progressive Study functions to make viable the
prominence/importance/leadership of individuals within movements where
they would otherwise not be central. Using academic credentials, an “ally” can
obtain employment at an agency, where services are provided to a constituency
in which the worker may or (more often) may not have “lived experience.” This
helps to propagate systems of domination within marginalized communities by
entitling non-members to important roles in their maintenance. Alisa Bierria
(2007), in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, gives the following example of the
progression in the ways education is viewed:

Organizers often understood themselves as belonging to a mutual
‘community of women who had suffered from patriarchal violence. Seattle
Rape Relief, for example, began from a speak-out, a mutual sharing of
stories about the experience of abuse, As the mavement developed and
became increasingly professionalized, workers were expected to be not
“battered women” but experts with a master’s degree in social work.

The Provision of Services

In the past, many revolutionary groups provided services to those who were
unable to obtain them elsewhere due to their marginalization, Examples of this
would be the development of shelters by radical feminists for women being
subjected to violence, and the Black Panther Party's free breakfast program,
‘These services, provided by grassroots organizers, posed important political
questions: Why do women need shelters? Why do Black children need breakfast?
‘Then they proposed responses: patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism,



Service provision was a valuable method for the recruitment, training, and
retention of militants. It served as a form of “prefigurative practice” via
direct action, as a way to develop organizing skills, and a venue to sharpen
revolutionary analysis, Also, every action taken by an organization or social

Common Cause * 9
movement is also a form of outreach and recruitment. Different forms of action
attract people with different goals. Symbolic action may attract those interested.
in representation. Lobbying attracts those who are invested in the power of the
State, The direct service provision served to attract high quality new recruits
who were interested in immediate results, but as they were constructed with
revolutionary goals in mind, served as a way to demonstrate the viability of
alternative economic and social arrangements,



Social interactions

In recent years we have seen an emphasis placed on the role of anti-oppressive
practice in regulating social interactions on the left. As manners go, anti-
oppression is not a bad try at a moral code that seeks not to brutalize and
disempower each other. Perhaps this is the best that can be said about it
However, it does not in and of itself constitute anything other than a bare
minimum standard of behaviour, certainly not a politics.



Decades ago, in yet another work that has been left unread by those who
invoke it, the value of such interventions were questioned by Carol Hanisch
(1970) in The Personal is Political. Discussing CR she states, “personal problems
are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time. There is
only collective action for a collective solution.” Soon after, Hanisch dismisses
lifestylism as without political merit:



The groups that I have been in have also not gotten into “alternative
lifestyles” or what it means to be a “liberated” woman. We came early to
the conclusion that all alternatives are bad under present conditions...
There is no “more liberated” way; there are only bad alternatives.



i-Global

When the Anti-Globalization Movement saw a groundswell of activism, action
and organizing, the capacities of the NPIC and Progressive Studies to contain
potential revolutionary forces were put to the test.



Reading and Waiting for the An ation Movement



Hungry to learn more about the world and how to change it, fresh activists turned
to the remnants of the last generation of high struggle. Only instead of finding
the history in their neighbourhoods, grandparents, political organizations
and prisons, they found them in books written by university-educated people,
themselves overwhelmingly disengaged from struggle, published in academic
journals and university-affiliated presses.

10 * With Allies Like These


Infused in this purportedly radical press was the ideology of anti-oppression.
Explicitly claiming heritage in the 1960s and 1970s liberation movements on
the one hand, anti-oppression theory on the other hand discourages direct
connection with these movements. Referencing and critiquing works of past
generations while not making those works directly available to new activists,
academics and their allies on the one hand stood on the backs of (often sti
living) organizers of decades gone, while dismissing their work as a whole as
“problematic”








Black Power canbe dismissed asanti-feministand homophobic. Labour struggles
are racist, colonialist, and patriarchal. Radical feminism is anti-trans*, anti-sex,
and sometimes homophobic, Other feminisms are pro-capitalist, and white-
centred. Gay liberation was dominated by white, affluent men. Components of
all movements sought to integrate themselves in political power structures and
Capital. In order for an idea to be worth considering, the generator of the idea
must be politically pure. And since the purity has to do with strict adherence
toa code of speech and conduct which was developed and is learned primarily
through universities in the past twenty years, which are accessible only to a
portion of workers (and in departments which are desirable to far, far fewer than
even have access) the pool of people who are able to speak with any authority
is quite small. Interestingly, it does not include many on-the-ground organizers,
past and present, but is dominated by those who have access or desire to pursue
a formal education in Progressive Studies.

‘The Anti-Globalization Movement, as it became known, thus came
to serve as the means by which anti-oppression politics would come
to imbed itself in the theory and activity of the Left, the activist
milieu, etc. Now, a decade and a half later it is held as the hegemonic, almost,
innate, orientation of most of the Left—radical, progressive, reformist, or
otherwise, We now will look at what this entails in day-to-day practice, and
‘what we understand the implications of this to be.



IL. Practices

In order to situate our critique, it is useful to consider some of the common.
practices associated with anti-oppression politics. Although a homogenous
grouping of practices does not exist, there are dominant trends that can be
observed. There are common customs and rules that constitute the lived
practices of anti-oppression politics. The descriptions we provide here are not,
exhaustive but representative.



Common Cause * 11
Workshops, Workshops & More Workshops!

Workshops are a foundational component of anti-oppression politics. Anti-
oppression workshops are mandatory in many non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) and activist groups. Workshops attempt to provide an overview of the
ways in which power operates in society, outline different forms of oppression,
and encourage participants to reflect on the ways in which they experience
privilege. Group exercises such as “Step Forward, Step Back” and “Mainstream/
Margin” are used to draw on personal experiences to highlight the different
ways in which oppression and privilege affect participants,

In Pursuit of Safe(r) Spaces

Safe or “safer” space policies are a standard outcome of anti-oppression politics.
Organizations and groups incorporate into their mission statements or basis of
unity documents a policy that expresses their commitment to anti-oppression
via the construction of safe spaces. These statements present a laundry list of
oppressions (racism, sexism, homophobia, “classism,” ableism, ageism, etc.) and
cover guidelines for appropriate behaviour. Common features of these policies
include using inclusive language (ie. avoid gendered language), being respectful
towards others, and the provision of “active” listeners.





Call-out Culture & “Working on Your Shit”

‘The “checking of privilege” is a fundamental component of anti-oppression
practice.



‘The analogy of “unpacking the knapsack” first used by Pegay Mcintosch in
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack has been widely adopted
by anti-oppression advocates, who centralize recognizing and thinking about
privilege. Part of this practice includes the use of the qualifier—people preface
statements with an acknowledgement of the ways in which they are privileged
(i.e. "As a white able-bodied settler who is university educated...”). If someone
is not adequately “checking their privilege,” the retaliation is “the call-out’—an
individual or group is informed (often publicly) that they need to “work on their
shit’ in order to realize the ways in which they benefit, and are complicit in x
oppression.





12. * With Allies Like These


The “Good Ally’

The identity of ally (as someone who primarily identifies as engaging in
struggle in support of others) is another cornerstone of anti-oppression politics.
According to a popular anti-oppression guide, anally is”..a person who supports
marginalized, silenced, or less privileged groups.” The fundamental pursuit of
someone with privilege is the quest to become a "good ally.” It is considered
fundamental to take leadership (usually unquestionable) from representatives,
of oppressed groups and act as an ally to their struggles. Innumerable lists,
guides, and workshops have been produced to outline the steps and necessary
requirements for being an ally. The individual focus of the idea of “ally” in
contrast to the collective response of “solidarity” which used to occupy a similar
place is symptomatic of the general denigration of collective action by anti-
oppression politics.

IIL Implications

Championing Individual Over Collective Action

While anti-oppression theory acknowledges that power relations operate
at both the micro and macro level, it places a disproportionate focus on the
level of individual interactions. Emphasis is placed on individual conduct and
personal improvement, with little attention given to challenging oppression
at a structural level. Widely used by activist groups and NGOs, the document
Principles and Practices of Anti-Oppression is a telling example of this trend.
‘The statement describes the operation of oppression and outlines steps for
challenging the unequal dist n of power solely in terms of individual
behaviour: It puts forth the following suggestions for confronting oppression:
“Keep space open for anti-oppression discussion... Be conscious of how your
language may perpetuate oppression...promote anti-oppression in everything
you do...don’t feel guilty, feel motivated.”



Ina similar vein, the popular blog Black Girl Dangerous in a recent post 4 Ways
to Push Back Against Your Privilege offers a simple four-step model. The first
step is to make the choice to relinquish power—if you are in a position of
power, relinquish this position. Step two is “just don’t go"—"If you have access
to something and you recognize that you have it partly because of privilege, opt,
out of it The third step is to shut up—if you are an individual of privilege who
is committed to anti-oppression you will "sit the hell down and shut up?” And.
finally, step four is to be careful with the identities that you claim. The strategy



Common Cause * 13


for ending oppression is articulated as a matter of addressing power dynamics
between individuals in a group context, but within the confines of the State and
Capitalism,

For the privileged subject, struggle is presented as a matter of personal growth
and development—the act of striving to be the best non-oppressive person
that you can be. An entire industry is built on providing resources, guides, and
trainings to help people learn to challenge oppression by means of “checking
their privilege.” The underlining premise of this approach is the idea that
privilege can be willed away. At best this orientation is ineffective, and at worst
it can actually work to recenter those who occupy positions of privilege at the
expense of wider political struggle. Andrea Smith reflecting on her experiences
with anti-oppression workshops, describes this issue:

‘These workshops had a bit ofa self-help orientation to them: "lam so and
so, and I havex privilege.” It was never quite clear what the point of these
confessions were...It did not appear that these individual confessions
actually led to any political projects to dismantle the structures of
domination that enabled their privilege. Rather, the confession became
the political project themselves.



Resulting in what Smith terms the “ally industrial complex,’ the approach
of challenging oppression via the confession of one’s privilege leads to a
valorization of the individual actions of a “confessing subject”. Acknowledging
the ways in which structures of oppression constitute who we are and how
we experience the world through the allocation of privilege is a potentially
worthwhile endeavour. However, it is not in and of itself politically productive
or transformative,







Privilege is a matter of power: It equates benefits, including access to resources
and positions of influence, and can be considered in terms of both psychological
or emotional benefits, as well as economic or material benefits. It is much
more than personal behaviours, interactions, and language, and can neither be
wished, nor confessed away. The social division of wealth and the conditions
under which we live and work shape our existence, and cannot be transformed
through individual actions, We must organize together to challenge the material
infrastructure that accumulates power (one result of which is privilege).
Anything less leads to privilege reductionism—the reduction of complex
systems of oppression whose structural basis is material and institutional to a
‘mere matter of individual interactions and personal behaviours.

14 * With Allies Like These
Relentless Articulation of Difference

As a component of anti-oppression politics, intersectionality accounts for the
complexity of domination by outlining the various ways in which different forms
of oppression intersect and reproduce each other. Rooted in feminist discussions
of the 1970s and 1980s that sought to problematize the notion of universal
“womanhood,” intersectionality provides a framework for conceptualizing
the ways in which different “positionalities” (eg. gender, sexuality, race, class,
ability, ete.) shape people's subjective experiences, as well as material realities.
Patricia Hill Collins describes intersectionality as an “..analysis claiming that,
systems of race, social class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, and age form
mutually constructing features of social organization.” In sum, intersectionality
provides a lens through which we can view people's social locations as mutually
constitutive and tied to systemic inequalities.

Intersectionality is often evoked in a manner that isolates and reifies social
categories without adequately drawing attention to common ground, Crucial to
its analysis is an emphasis on a politics of difference—it is asserted that our
identities and social locations necessarily differentiate us from those who do
not share those identities and social locations. So, for example, a working class
queer woman will not have the same experiences and by extension, the same
interests as an affluent woman who is straight. Similarly, a cis-man of colour will
not have the same experiences and by extension the same interests as a trans*
‘man of colour, and so on and so forth. Within this framework, difference is the
fundamental unit of analysis and that which proceeds and defines identity. This
practice works to isolate and sever connections between people in that it places
all of its emphasis on differentiation.

‘There are seemingly endless combinations of identities that can be articulated.
However, these articulations of difference do not necessarily get at the root of
the problem, As Collins argues: "..Quite simply, difference is less a problem for
me than racism, class exploitation and gender oppression, Conceptualizing
these systems of oppression as difference obfuscates the power relations and
material inequalities that constitute oppression”





It is absolutely true that our social locations shape our experiences, and may
influence our politics. Acknowledging difference is important, but it is not
enough. It can obscure the functioning of oppression, and act as a barrier to
collective struggle. The experiences of a female migrant who works as a live-in
caregiver will not be the same as a male worker who has citizenship and worksin
a unionized office. These differences are substantial and should not be ignored.
However, in focusing only on difference we lose sight of the fact that both are



we 15
exploited under capitalism, and havea shared interest in organizing to challenge
Capital. To be clear, this is not to say that divisions can be put aside and dealt
with “after the revolution’, but to highlight the importance of finding common
ground as a basis to bridge difference and organize collectively to challenge
‘oppression. In the words of Sherene Razack: “speaking about difference...is not
going to start the revolution.” Moving beyond a politics of difference, we need
‘an oppositional politics that seeks to transform structural relations of power.



The Subcultural Ghetto and Lifestylism

The culture of anti-oppression politics lends itself to the creation and
maintenance of insular activist circles. A so-called “radical community” —
consisting of collective houses, activist spaces, book-fairs, etc. — premised on
anti-oppression politics fashions itself as a refuge from the oppressive relations
and interactions of the outside world. This notion of “community”, along
with anti-oppression politics’ intense focus on individual and micro personal
interactions, disciplined by “call-outs” and privilege checking, allows for the
politicization of a range of trivial lifestyle choices. This leads to a bizarre process
in which everything from bicycles to gardens to knitting are accepted as radical
activity.



Call-out culture and the fallacy of community accountability creates a
disciplinary atmosphere in which people must adhere to a specific etiquette.
Spaces then become accessible only to those who are familiar with, and able
to express themselves with the proper language and adhere to the dominant
customs. Participation in the discourse which shapes and directs this language
and customs is mostly up to those who are able to spend too much time debating
on activist blogs, or who are academics or professionals well versed in the
dialect. As mentioned previously, the containment of radical discourse to the
university further insulates the “activist bubble” and subcultural ghetto.

In addition to creating spaces that are alienating to those outside of our milieu,
anti-oppression discourse, call-out culture, and the related “communities” leads
activists to perceive themselves as an “enlightened” section of the class (largely
‘composed of academics, students, professionals, etc. who have worked on their
shit and checked their privilege) who are tasked with acting as missionaries
to the ignorant and unclean masses. This anarchist separatist orientation is
problematic for any who believe in the possibility of mass liberatory social
movements that are capable of actually transforming society.



One example of this orientation is a recent tumblr blog maintained by Toronto
activists entitled Colonialism Ain't Fashionable. The blog encourages activists to

16 * With Allies Like These
use their smart phones to snap photos of people wearing Hudson Bay jackets
in public and submit them. Hudson Bay is a Canadian retailer which played a
torically significant role in colonialism, and the jacket in particular is seen
by activists as an example of cultural appropriation. Photos are then published
ina strange act of attempted public shaming, justified with some high-minded
language about “challenging colonialism at a cultural level,” or “sparking
discussion,” What we actually see on display here is the arrogant glee with
which those within the activist bubble shake their finger at those outside it.









‘The retreatto subcultural bohemian enclavesand activist bubbles acknowledges
that revolutionary change is impossible, and as a substitute offers a counterfeit
new society in the here and now. We understand that such a proposition is
appealing given the day-to-day indignity and suffering that is life under our
current conditions, but time and time again we have seen these experiments
implode on themselves. Capitalism simply does not offer a way out and we must,
face this reality as the rest of the class that we are a part of faces it everyday. No
amount of call-outs or privilege checking will make us into individuals untainted
by the violent social relationships that permeate our reality.

Privilege, Militancy & Implicit Pacifism

As a pacifying feature of anti-oppression politics, the assertion is frequently
‘made that militancy is a luxury for the privileged. In the context of a meeting in
which a militant action is proposed, proponents of anti-oppression politics will
often critique the proposal on the basis that only those with x or y privilege can
participate in such an action. Due to the increased risks associated with militant
action, itis argued that confrontational politics are largely the domain of those
‘who occupy a social location of privilege, mainly cis-men. This line of argument
is then used to criticize confrontational actions as exclusionary and to gender
such actions as masculine (ie, the framing of a tactic as “manarchist"), For
example, the Autonomous Workers’ Group notes that black bloc actions in their
city of Portland are often critiqued on the basis of furthering a "..mentality of
‘masculine, white privilege.” In a similar vein, another article critiques property
destruction and illegal strike action, stating:



There are many problems with this. Some people cannot get arrested
(immigration status or compromise of professional licensing}
Other issues that warrant consideration are people who may have
had traumatic experiences around violence or the police (or both).
People with health issues (mental or physical) may also not be able to
participate in these kind actions...





we 17
Noting that it is not feasible for everyone to participate in high-risk actions,
the article concludes that peaceful protest provides an opportunity for anyone,
regardless of privilege, to participate. The end result of this logic is an aversion
to risk that breeds an implicit pacifism.



‘The avoidance of risk is a logical impossibility. To engage in revolutionary
struggle is necessarily to put yourself at risk. To be against Capital, the State,
colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, etc, is to declare yourself an enemy
of these systems. Risk, discomfort, conflict are unavoidable. The history and
ongoing reality of resistance movements is radically unsafe, Furthermore, for
a lot of people simply going through their daily life is not safe. Marginalized
communities aren't safe going about their daily lives because of institutions of
oppression—police, prisons, individual, and systemic violence, etc. To ignore
this reality is to abandon revolutionary organizing, Jackie Wang notes: *..
removing all elements of risk and danger reinforces a politics of reformism that
just reproduces the existing social order:”

If we accept that a) confrontation is relegated to privileged social positions, and,
that b) inclusivity is an uncompromising imperative, it follows that pacifism is
the only acceptable approach to struggle. There exists an essential contradiction,
Within the framework of anti-oppression politics itis only the most oppressed
who are considered to be legitimate actors in struggle (the role of the privileged
is the ally). Yet, itis argued that militancy is for the privileged alone. Thus, the
only option available is passive resistance. The framing of confrontational forms
of resistance as belonging to the realm of privilege acts to relegate necessary
tools — actions, tactics, strategies, etc. — to a domain that is inaccessible. It re-
inscribes, rather than challenges the unequal distribution of power in society,
acts to erase militant histories in which oppressed peoples have engaged in
violent resistance, and further thrusts a role of hapless victim onto those who
are oppressed. There is nothing liberatory about this.







IV. Moving Forward

We have identified the current regime of anti-oppression politics as inadequate
in providing a way forward in the task of developing a revolutionary movement.
capable of meaningfully challenging systems of oppression and exploitation.
Not only are these politics inadequate, but ultimately regressive and counter
productive, Attempts to address the inadequacies of anti-oppression are often
met with accusations of class reductionism. While we acknowledge that class
reductionism exists as an incorrect political orientation, the accusation of

18 * With Allies Like These
such can be used asa strawman attack on those who transgress the dominant
iscourse within anarchist/radical circles.



Reducing the Class

Asan actual political orientation, class reductionism can be largely described as
atendency on the Left which prioritizes the economic struggle in the workplace
as the primary terrain of revolutionary or progressive action. Often this will go
further to fetishize a particular segment of workplace struggle, namely that of
blue collar, industrial workers. Whether or not it is implicitly stated, the belief
is held that the struggle against other oppressions — white supremacy, hetero-
patriarchy, ableism, etc. — are incidental to the class struggle, to be engaged in
as secondary, or that they are simply prejudices concocted by the ruling class to
be dealt with “after the revolution.”

On the other hand, we have the proponents of anti-oppression politics
attempting to amalgamate “class” as another oppression alongside the rest,
which “intersect” with one another at various times and places in a person's
life. Here we are presented with the grotesque notion of “classism’—the
result of an attempt by anti-oppression theory to reconcile inadequate
politics with the entirety of capitalist social relations. The School Of the
Americas Watch Anti-Oppression Toolkit section on classism offers a prime
example:

The stereotype is that poor and working class people are unintelligent,
inarticulate, and “overly emotional.” A good ally (a non-working class
committed supporter) will contradict these messages by soliciting the
knowledge and histories of poor working class people, being a thoughtful
listener, trying to understand what is being sai



Putting aside for a second the conflation of “poor” and “working class” which
indicates this writer's lack of insight into the matter they seek to educate about,
there is truth in the descriptions of the “stereotype”.

We are reminded of the 2010 movie, Made in Daginham, where Eddie
O'Grady attempts to ingratiate himself to his wife by pointing out that he
does not beat her or their children, Frustrated by her husband’s lack of
consideration of her struggle, Rita replies, “That is as it should be..You
don’t go on the drink, do ya? You don’t gamble, you join in with the kids,
you don’t knock us about. Oh, lucky me. For Christ’s sake, Eddie, that's as
it should be! You try and understand that. Rights, not privileges. It’s that
easy. It really bloody is.”





we * 19
Similarly, for all the back-patting going on with regards to “allies” most of
what is advised and done constitutes nothing more than a minimal standard
of behaviour. We do not feel respected when someone in a position of power
“consults” us before making a decision regarding our lives, no matter how
attentive and probing they may be. We see this emphasis on listening to rather
than creating-with as uncomradely and tokenizing.

In their essay insurrections at the Intersections anarchists Jen Rogue and Abbey
Volcano address so-called classism by writing:

Since everyone experiences these identities differently, many theorists
writing on intersectionality have referred to something called
“classism” to complement racism and sexism. This can lead to the
gravely confused notion that class oppression needs to be rectified by
rich people treating poor people “nicer” while still maintaining class
society. This analysis treats class differences as though they are simply
cultural differences. In turn, this leads toward the limited strategy of
“respecting diversity” [...] This argument precludes a class struggle
analysis which views capitalism and class society as institutions and
enemies of freedom. We don't wish to “get along” under capitalism by
abolishing snobbery and class elitism,

Both ofthese instances ofreductionism pointtoa fundamental misunderstanding
of class and class struggle, as well as to the limits of intersectionality in
understanding social relationships under capitalism. The class reductionism we
should be critical of is that which attempts to reduce the class to a mere section
of it (whether it is simply the poorest, or the most blue collar), and that which
attempts to hold up the interests of that section as that of the entire class. The
reality is that the majority of the planet is working class, and we must recognize
that the material obstacles within our class, and the manner by which they
reproduce themselves must be attacked as a matter of necessity. Not because
‘we are good allies or because we want to check privileges or because we want
to reduce everything to "class first!” but because we are fucking revolutionaries
and we have to.

The (Re)production of Division

If our intention is not strictly limited to maintaining activist enclaves, we are
required to look for the means to understand the development of identity and.
division under capitalism. In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici examines the
position of women throughout the rise of capitalism. With an emphasis on the
incredibly violent subjugation necessary, witch burnings being an especially

20 * With Allies Like These


stark example, Fed forical process that fostered the
patriarchal social relationships which uphold, and define capitalism,

This process is one which ran alongside the period of primitive accumulation
in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The enclosure of the commons
by a fledgling bourgeoisie and the imposition of private property was the
material basis for the proletarianization of populations—without the land base
necessary for subsistence, peasants became workers who must sell their labour
for a wage in order to survive, Primitive accumulation is the subsumption of
life into the rubric of Capital — land into property, time into wages, things into
commodities — and by extension the transformation of social relationships
hecessary to maintain and reproduce these categories. The subjugation of
women to patriarchal capitalism was a crucial element of this process. The
construction of the nuclear family, the assignment of domestic and reproductive
labour as “women’s work’, and the subsequent devaluation and erasure of that
about, were historic tasks achieved through the development of capitalism.
Attempting to understand patriarchy as limited to individual attitudes or
actions, or somehow isolated from capitalism (regardless of patriarchal or
gendered divisions of labour in pre-capitalist history) is therefore impossible.
Speaking to the accomplishment of the implementation of these new social
relationships, Federici writes:

in the new organization of work every woman (other than those
privatized by bourgeois men) became a communal good, for once
women's activities were defined as non-work, women’s labor began to
‘appear as a natural resource, available to all, no less than the air we
breathe or the water we drink.

‘The social, economic, and political position of women was thus defined under
capitalism. This new reality meant that the class struggle, that is the struggle for
the emancipation of the working class takes on a particular character whether
or not this is recognized by its would-be partisans. Federici further explains:



With their expulsion from the crafts and the devaluation of reproductive
labor, a new patriarchal order was constructed, reducing women to a
double dependence: on employers and on men.

This “double dependence” thus implies that the oppression of women under
capitalism is not something that is incidental, nor something that can be
addressed in isolation. As having particular features and the product of
(ongoing) historic development, attacking patriarchy demands that we attack
the conditions which allow the perpetuation of the social relationships by which
itis constituted, As class struggle anarchists then we identify the class struggle

* 21


as one against this “double dependence” as we struggle against the conditions
which are necessary for capitalism to reproduce itself.

Struggling at the Barricades, Struggling at Home

In 2006, the Mexican state of Oaxaca became engulfed in a popular uprising
that lasted several months. What began as an annual teachers strike developed
into a popular conflict. Barucha Calamity Peller’s Women in Uprising: The
Oaxaca Commune, the State, and Reproductive Labour looks at the revolt and
the particular role women played. The essay shows us both what the disruption
of the reproduction of patriarchal social relations can look like and how
the reinforcement of those relations from within the movement ultimately
contributed to its limitation and defeat.

On April 1st, 2006, a march of the Cacerolas (later imitated in Quebec and across
Canada) consisting of over ten thousand women, initiated the takeover of TV
station Canal Neuve. Several hundred women from the march occupied the
building, which was repurposed as a communication hub and resource to the
ongoing struggle. Peller writes:

Besides transmitting, producing daily programming, and holding
workshops, long hours were spent during nightly patrols of the
transmitter and defensive barricades in which the women of Canal Nueve
spoke to each other while huddled around small fires drinking coffee
to stay awake. The dialogue and solidarity that emerged between the
women was perhaps one of the most potent results of the takeover: What
was before “private” and “personal” became a site for resistance. It was
during these conversations that women for the first time experienced a
‘space not dominated by men, in the absence of the market, in which they
could organize freely and relate experiences, and talk to other women.
This is where the idea of women’s autonomy emerged in Oaxaca, and it
was to this formation of women, where there was no exploitation of their
labor, no dominance of the market or the family, that the women would
refer throughout the struggle.

‘What we find important here is the implication that the creation of new, anti
capitalist, anti-patriarchal relations requires the creation of the material basis
to doso. The creation of such a basis requires the negation and disruption of the
conditions that produce the old ways of interacting. Here, the occupation of the
Canal Neuve could be understood as what a revolutionary women’s movement
in embryo might look like—where the conditions were created for the creation
of a new subjectivity and the destruction of the former identity.

22% With Allies Like These
In the case of Oaxaca, patriarchy still persisted within the movement. Women
who attempted to challenge traditional gender roles were subjected to domestic
abuse and/or forced to continue to take on the full burden of reproductive
labour.

Rather than rely on limited class reductionist understandings, either limiting
itself to the factory floor or sociological definitions of proles,” we muststrive for
class struggle which directs us towards the abolition of the divisions within our
lass that are necessary to uphold capitalism. We find the example of the Oaxaca
uprising useful insofar as it provides us with a glimpse of both the undoing
of oppressive social relationships, and the defense of those relationships in a
period of intensified struggle.

While this section has focused primarily on gendered division and oppression
under capitalism, our intention is to emphasize that these categories and
identities are historically constructed, and have a material basis to their
continued reproduction. We see the process of their destruction as one that is
necessarily part of the class struggle. To paraphrase Marx, this is the process
of moving towards a class that is conscious of itself, and able to act in its own
interest—a class for itself.

V. Conclusion

It is our belief that the ways in which humans are exploited, assaulted, pitted
against one another, and robbed of individual and collective agency must (and
furthermore, can) be overcome and replaced with a liberatory existence. While
some see anti-oppression politics as contributing to this endeavour, we see these
politics as a substantial hindrance to revolutionary organizing. We would like to
challenge our comrades and fellow travellers to do better than this half-hearted
liberal project that facilitates the reduction of complex social and economic
problems to interpersonal dynamics and individual privileges. Our struggle is
collective, and so too must be our tools and analysis.



* 23


This textis from Volume 2 of Mortar: Revolutionary Journal
of Common Cause Anarchist Organization. Common Cause

Vee) ae GH) isan anarchist-communist organization based in Ontario,
Canada, with active branches in Hamilton, Kitchener-
Waterloo and Toronto.

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