Briahna Joy Gray with Nornam Finkelstein on Identity Politics and his Latest Book

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
GED/HEO

2-16-23

 

A great discussion here with Briahna Joy Gray and Norman Finlkelstein about his new book,  I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It! Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom. I have just purchased it.  I am not familiar with Ms. Gray until now but she was Bernie Sanders campaign manager, I am very familiar with Norman Finkelstein and his work.

 

They both take up the so-called “Squad” in the Democratic Party with regards to “Force the Vote” and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the Squad’s response to the removal of Ilan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee with AOC turning it in to an issue of identity claiming she was removed as part of the war against women of color. While many of those supporting that decision are likely both misogynists and racists, the reason she was removed was because of her politics.

 

There is also a long discussion about the rise of Sanders and his capitulation that is taken up in the book.  Finkelstein talks about how Sanders could have built a “mass movement on a class platform” but at that moment the weapon of identity politics was brought in to “fragment it” to “destroy it”.

 

Finkelstein points out that had Sanders pursued this path the capitalist owned mass media would have gone on the offensive against him. MSNBC, Fox News, “they understand their class interests” he says and “…they don’t worry about their pronouns, they worry about their bank accounts” Nice to hear some sensible stuff coming from a left position as the left is so often absent when responding to the nonsensical, reactionary approach of identity politics.

 

I have news for the pronoun addicts, the vast majority of the working class is not worried about pronouns either, this is a very 1^st world and, I hate to say it, petit bourgeois issue.

 

I agree with Finkelstein on the mass movement that arose around police violence and he gives the example of the protests around George Floyd, that there was real solidarity in this movement, ethnic solidarity and solidarity among youth of all backgrounds. “it was very moving to me” says Finkelstein and he is right. It was of considerable concern to the US ruling class and the divisive issue of identity politics is yet another strategy they use to undermine and weaken working class unity.

 

The issue of the rail strike came up as well as the leadership of DSA and what causes the betrayals of people like Sanders. Ms Gray mentions moral failure, in other words character flaw, structural problems and so on. And they both correctly recognize the pressure that comes down on leaders or potential leaders of mass movements, they get bought off etc. This is always a danger, but it is being rooted in the mass movement, rooted in the working class and not just organizing and leading the class but learning form the working class.

 

Marx’s profound statement that the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself is brought up in the context of the role university educated or academics can play in our movement. Universities in my view are capitalist think tanks, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn very important things about society and life through the university experience. The main issue for those academics who want to be part of the workers movement is that they listen not just teach, that they learn from the working class as well and that they place the knowledge they have through their education at the service of the working class. Examples of this from academia are not common, but there are heroic figures today and historically that have played this role at great sacrifice to themselves.

 

Anyway, just a few comments here, but do take the time to watch the video and get the book.