if I put fanonian words in the proverbial mouth of Cornelius Castoriadis I would say Black is not the object at the centre of Marxist discourse but rather Black is the unconscious of their discourse. And marxism is a discourse on oppression that must never be countenanced violating white bodies. Siphi ke thina apho? Asikho, clearly! so we leave marx and quickly move to fanon so that you can have frank say: afro-pessimism explores the meaning of Blackness not- in the first instance- as identities that [slipped through the social mobility ladder only to become tokens for whites and a stick in white peoples hands. A stick by which whites punish blacks for our stagnation and lack of success. Like Ramaposa is successful. worse such token like ramaphosa work as a survailance search light by which Blacks police themselves and blame themselves for their,our, conditions of squalor and poverty]. Frank also draws us to a point that says: loook at Black not as some conscious social actor, but look at the positionality of Black as a structural position of non-communicability in the face of other position [such as: prolitariat, 13th century merchants, chinese mandarins, fuedal lords, roman patricians, bank managers, peasants, workers even the underclass.] This is true of black position in the world because Blackness is predicated on modalities of accumulation and fungibility, not exploitation and alienation[which are coordinates that delimit white suffering] But that doesnt mean workers or even communities immediate struggles can not be influenced by our ideas and organization in order to make those immediate demands transcend their immediate nature; to answer a higher call: the call of our historical concern. being concerned with correcting history that erased us informs the essence of our struggle. proletariat is at best a watered down form of that essence and at worst a distraction completely. and the burden on us is to salvage that modicum of proletariat that wants to step shit up. better still we must instil that desire to make our people who subscribe to union-consciousness see that worker consciousness is no catergory for our Black positionality. It could be a launchpad from which to raise consciousness since worker-aristocracy make it easy to point out that in marikana the white unionized worker is part of the rulling class rather than a working class. Why? Because psychological and double wage of white skin bar the bullets and violence Black bodies historically magnetize!
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 08:54:48 +0000
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