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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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Would you expect American Communists, or indeed communists generally, to not support BLM?

I expect there to be a range, actually. The far-left in America, as I understand it, is pretty diverse. For instance, CPUSA seems pretty pro-BLM, but meanwhile, WSWS denounces BLM as capitalist stooges, and sees it as a ruling class ploy to divide workers.

My overall sense is that this is probably a relatively low ebb for the link between communism and black politics in the US. The Black Panthers were explicitly Marxist-Leninist - BLM indulge in anarchist rhetoric sometimes (abolish the police etc.), but aren't as directly ideological.

If you were persuaded that hammers and sickles were a common addition to BLM-riot graffiti, would this be weak evidence of a connection between the two movements?

Yes, that seems reasonable enough.

My current read at the moment is that the George Floyd protests and aftermath were quite incoherent, ideologically. Apart from a general sense that something is wrong, there wasn't a clear platform or idea, and what we saw after the protests and riots was a wide range of competing actors trying to capture the energy of the moment. I wouldn't say that any wholly succeeded.

More generally, do you think the examples linked in this comment are likewise lacking a "developed political platform"? Are those people Marxists, in your view?

Yep, those seem pretty Marxist, or at least, Marxist-influenced. I could probably pick some nits if I really wanted - Marxism is one specific school of socialism, socialist thought is broader than just that, anti-capitalism is not synonymous with Marxism - but I think no one could deny that, at the very least, those writers are familiar with Marxism and it has influenced their thought. A couple of them strike me as more intersectional (this one, for instance, strikes me as an all-of-the-above approach to critique), but I'm not going to argue that much.