Great conversation, Intersectionality has always been interesting to me because I believe that everyone is different in many ways. Questions of race, class and gender are not ways to simply place identity into politics, but structural ways in which power is operationalized differently depending on various contexts.
I have engaged in many race class debates and a few gender, race and class debates and in general most are unsatisfying. The two most salient views are at odds with each other. Either the question of solidarity comes first and the task is to democratically engage with power through deliberation accepting the risk that minority rights may become crushed by majorities. The alternative is to magnify the individual characteristics of power to account for specificities that break the capacity for solidarity when people with differing views can’t meet the burden of rejoinder to engage in deliberation democratic organizing is render ineffective or nil. To me there seems to be a point were both of these extremes converge. When individuals seek the maximum degree of freedom this is the index of the social, when groups of people question the specific dynamics of power this is the index of individuality. To ensure maximal freedom both moments must continue indefinitely. Individuals must expand the limits of freedom and groups must evolve to elevate the role of individuals. Limiting the scope back to racial or economic justice, these concepts of expansiveness run parallel to empathy and the capacity to share love with our comrades to be vulnerable to criticisms even from our allies and to do the work of justice and not of simply inclusion. Intersectional power doesn’t mean power is weaker at any one modality so that resolving racism or changing the economy would be sufficient in and of itself to the task of eliminating all oppression. Likewise, ignoring nuances in how power operates for the sake of mass politics doesn’t ensure that the political line would be unencumbered by the impact of minority concerns. Rather, nuanced conceptions of difference and structural modalities of power, both require the same level of empathy, deliberation, and tactical intervention which requires an expansive posture, an openness willing to confront issues internally and externally without closing the frontier. Democracy can not be sacrificed to preserve minority rights nor can it be sacrificed to the tyranny of majorities. When freedom, liberty, and justice are stripped of their bourgeois character, the strength in organizational capacity is revealed as the movement to and from intersections. This process denotes the building of suffrage and the foundation of collective power. Cheers, Ben On Wed, May 13, 2026 at 12:02 PM Mark Baugher via groups.io <mark= [email protected]> wrote: > We need to understand and deal with "intersectionality" on the left today. > There has been some references to it but little discussion on the marxmail > list in the past. So thanks for posting this. > > On May 12, 2026, at 04:46, Dennis Brasky via groups.io <dmozart1756= > [email protected]> wrote: > > *https://portside.org/2026-05-11/idea-reshaped-identity-politics-has-complicated-backstory > <https://portside.org/2026-05-11/idea-reshaped-identity-politics-has-complicated-backstory>* > > > '"The introductory essay, attributed to all of them, decried “first > amendment fundamentalists” and argued that “ ‘freedom’ does not implicate a > right to degrade and humiliate another human being.”' > > I lost an argument with a college student a dozen years ago when I said > that the practice of shutting down speakers on campus doesn't defeat their > ideas as well as debating them can. She said "People should not need to > tolerate racists who malign them as inferior." I had no comeback to that > truth. > > I think acting on that truth can go one of two ways: If you believe that > we can eliminate racism under capitalism, then the goal is to reform the > system through politics and the courts, etc. If you believe that we can > only eliminate racism by first abolishing capitalist exploitation, then the > goal is expropriating the capitalist class. An overthrow of capitalism may > not be a sufficient condition, and the struggle to eliminate white > supremacy in the US may continue, but I think that capitalist exploitation > is one of the ways racism is reproduced. > > When it comes to fighting exploitation, revolutionary socialists may > differ from reformist socialist on freedom of speech. To revolutionary > socialists, free speech and open operation are essential to successful > struggle, the raising of class consciousness, and the organizing of working > people. Reformists expect that stopping hate speech by outlawing it might > gradually help to eliminate racism. > > The problem with enabling the capitalist government to outlaw speech is > how governments have used hate speech laws against the very people who are > fighting racist persecution. I think we need other means than giving the > capitalist government the legal tools to eliminate rights, not to stop > racism but to smother a liberation movement. > > Mark > > > > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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